


The Borders of Night Start to Give

by punch_kicker15



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Magic, Magic-Users
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 47,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punch_kicker15/pseuds/punch_kicker15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prophecy leads Giles to practice dark magic once again. This sets him down a dark path, and Willow may be the only one who can help. AU in which Willow’s magic training started earlier than in canon.</p><p><i>And the rent is too high living here between reasons to live</i><br/><i>Where you can't sleep alone</i><br/><i>and your memories groan</i><br/><i>and the borders of night start to give</i>.</p><p>The Weakerthans, "A New Name for Everything"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelus2hot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelus2hot/gifts).



> Thanks to scratchingpost1 for generously offering a plot bunny that ate my brain, gilescandy and dragonyphoenix for looking over a very rough first draft and offering helpful suggestions and encouragement. Thanks also to the mods (red_b_rackham and traycer_) and other participants at het big bang for all of the help and hand-holding throughout.

**Sunnydale, 1981**

**Catherine Madison**

Catherine lost six days on her final magic bender at Rack’s.

It had started like any other night there--floating to the ceiling, lost in the power of the spell. Then the room disappeared, and she was scaling a mountain, snow falling all around her, dusting her hair and eyes, chilling her to the bone. Two identical snowflakes landed on her sleeve, and she turned to tell someone, anyone, but she was all alone.

Her heart pounded as she raced to the top of the mountain. She dove off it, falling for hours until the ocean caught her in its arms. She marveled at the perfectly symmetrical cottages the fish had built among the coral reefs. Then the girls who had been cut from the cheer squad grabbed her by the arms and tried to bite her with their piranha teeth. She swam away as fast as she could, gasping for air on every stroke.

After days of swimming, she washed ashore a beach with warm purple sand that squished beneath her feet. When she woke again, a circle of fire surrounded her, and there was no way out.

She returned to reality just outside Rack’s lair, with the taste of ashes on her tongue, and a wrenching sense of loss where her magic had been.

She waited months for it to return, as it always had before. She begged anyone with magic for borrowed power, but it didn’t take. She tried kick-starting it with drugs. Nothing happened. She tried sex, first with her husband, then with warlocks, other witches, and demons. Nothing changed.

In desperation, she drove to Santa Clara to the coven that had cast her out for misuse of magic years ago.

She sat on the grass outside the coven, swatting at mosquitos, ignoring the curious stares of the junior witches, as Theresa, the High Priestess, read her aura.

Theresa finished her examination, looked at Catherine with sorrow in her eyes. “You’ve burned through your magic so thoroughly that none can take root in you again.”

Theresa didn’t need to add, _We warned you about this_. Catherine heard that message loud and clear. She’d had a rare gift, and she’d lost it through her own carelessness.

***

It ate away at her until she had a dream on the Summer Solstice. In that dream, she drifted through the universe, connected to oceans and constellations and black holes with the startling clarity she’d only known when casting powerful spells.

She reached Breaker’s Woods, and she saw a being of pure magic. A powerful witch, not yet born. Still unformed.

The universe spoke to her. It told her that she could mentor a younger witch, help her avoid the mistakes she had made.

She woke up, and as the emotions of the dream began to fade, she realized that she didn’t have to be just a salon owner, obsessed with the triumphs of her past. She had a destiny.

Three days later, she discovered she was pregnant. It all made perfect sense. She started reading beginner spellbooks, ethics manuals, training drills, and anything else she could find about raising and nurturing a talented young witch. Catherine the Great had never done anything by half-measures and wasn’t about to start now.

*** 

**Sunnydale, January 1997**

**Catherine**

Catherine was halfway to her salon when she realized she’d forgotten the angelica for the face wash. She hurried back to the house, opened the gate to the backyard and discovered Amy and girl with long hair sitting under the oak tree, floating pencils. That was odd. Amy hardly ever brought friends home.

The other girl’s pencil spun in a much wider circle than Amy’s. The girl saw Catherine, and gave a little shriek. The pencil spun wildly out of control, careening into an olive tree.

Catherine ran to the tree to inspect it. The pencil was embedded several inches deep. To do that, by accident--this little girl was powerful.

The girl said, “I’m sorry about your tree! I don’t know how that happened.” Her voice shook, and her eyes darted to Amy.

Catherine tugged at the pencil. It didn't budge. “It’s all right. You can talk to me about the magic.” She yanked the pencil out of the tree. “I’d be glad to give you lessons, if you like.”

The girl’s face burst into a huge grin. The pencil wobbled in Catherine's hand. “Really?”

Catherine said, “Sure. What’s your name again?”

The girl said, “Willow.” 

Catherine been trying and failing to help Amy come into her powers all these years, but it wasn’t her fault. It was because her destiny was to mentor someone else. Willow clearly had much more potential than Amy did.

***

**Welcome to the Hellmouth**

**Willow**

Sophomore year was actually starting to look up for Willow. It had started off fairly badly: Xander and Jesse shut her out more and more often, and Jesse was all big with a crush on Cordelia, of all people.

But then Amy had invited her over to her house to learn _magic_. Not the sleight of hand stuff, actual magic. And when Amy’s mom had found out, instead of being mad, she'd agreed to teach Willow magic, too. A lot of it was working on endless "connecting with the earth" exercises, and reading ethics books, but it was all supposed to build up to more exciting stuff later.

Then the new librarian showed up with a whole bunch of really old and interesting history and biography books. These were books that weren’t even in the Sunnydale public library, or even UC Sunnydale’s library. And he was really, really smart, and handsome, and he had that English accent that made her head go all tingly.

And to top it off, the new pretty girl, the one who legally should be part of the Cordettes, had actually tried to be friends with her. It had to be the magic--even though Willow had kept it a secret, there was probably something about it that had changed her, made her more of the kind of person that someone like Buffy Summers would want as a friend.

She was this close to having an interesting life. And it had all started with learning magic.

*** 

**Catherine**

Willow stared across the yard at Catherine, an intense look of concentration on her face. “ _Vincire!_ ”

Catherine felt the magic wrap lightly around her arms. Not perfect, but remarkably good for a first try. “Good. Now hold it and see if you can get it to bind me tighter. You want to immobilize your opponent’s hands.”

Amy darted up behind Willow and grabbed her shoulder. “That’s freaking amazing, Willow.”

“Oh!” Willow flinched, and fell against the rose trellis. The magic bonds wavered, then disappeared. She leaned against the rose trellis, panting.

“I think that’s enough for today.” Catherine said. “Remember to read chapter six of Roslova’s ethical principles. We’ll discuss them tomorrow.”

After Willow had left, she walked back to the kitchen, where Amy was sitting at the table, pretending she hadn’t just shoved a brownie in her mouth.

“You did that on purpose,” Catherine said.

The cat wandered in and twined around Amy’s leg. She petted him and gave Catherine a sullen look. “Shouldn’t she learn how to do spells when someone’s trying to distract her?”

“That’s not why you did it.”

Amy blinked back tears. She picked up the cat and ran upstairs.

Catherine sat down and considered the Amy issue. Craig had found a new job in Sacramento, and had asked if they could revise the custody agreement.

Tomorrow she’d tell him he could take Amy with him to Sacramento.

It was for the best. Amy had served her purpose: she’d led Catherine to her role as Willow’s mentor. There was nothing else for Catherine to provide her; she might as well let Craig take his shot at parenting their daughter. Maybe he could motivate her to do something besides gorge on brownies and sulk about all the attention Willow was getting.

***

**Out of Mind, Out of Sight**

**Willow**

Willow wasn’t having any luck finding any credible causes of invisibility online, just a lot of crackpots with weird websites and even weirder theories about the world. But one search result caught her eye. Giles was always on the lookout for Slayer prophecies.

"Giles, the University of Arizona just published a translation of a Navajo myth. It's about a really strong girl who fights monsters. It says she'll meet her darker sister, and then something about both of them saving the world from a major evil that might be invisible, or untouchable."

Her breath caught a little as he moved closer to look over her shoulder. She loved that intense, focused look he got when he was interested in something.

"Oh, that's fascinating. That one’s new to me. Print it out and we'll add it to the list. Good catch."

She tried to keep her face neutral, but inside she was grinning ear to ear. Giles knew practically everything. Finding a prophecy that he didn’t already know was really, really something.

She’d been thinking about him and Ms. Calendar a lot lately. They were both really warm and kind to her, and she liked that a lot. Catherine wasn’t nearly as friendly. Occasionally she thought she should tell Giles and Ms. Calendar about the magic, and ask them to help.

But Giles and Ms. Calendar sometimes acted like she was she was just a kid. Catherine was the only adult who always took her completely seriously. That was probably worth putting up with someone who could be kind of cold.

*** 

**Summer 1998**

**Xander**

Willow took her parents’ “no boys in her bedroom” rule seriously, so they ate their Twinkies on the floor of the living room.

“There’s a Star Trek marathon on Channel 57 tomorrow,” he said. “Do you still have your pointy Vulcan ears? I’ll bring mine.”

Willow choked on her Twinkie, and took a long drink of water. “I can’t. My parents hired a, um, test prep tutor, so I’ll be busy here every morning.”

All of this seemed like the kind of thing Willow’s parents would do and Willow would go along with (and probably weirdly enjoy). But the way she said it was just a little too quick.

“C’mon, what are you really up to? Is it a fun thing?”

“It’s kind of the opposite of fun. Unless you consider vocabulary drills, and um, logical inference a real hoot.” She looked down at her half-eaten Twinkie., then said, “Did you catch Babylon 5 the other night? What do you think is gonna happen with Lyta and the telepath, now that she has weapons?”

Oh, she was hiding something. Was it something about a guy? That seemed fairly freaksome, because judging by the past year, any guy Willow was interested in was practically guaranteed to be a demon. And Buffy wasn't around to protect her this time.

***

The next morning, he waited a few houses down from Willow’s to see who this “test prep tutor” was. Instead, Willow left the house with an armful of books. He followed her, feeling kind of strange about the whole 007 routine, but someone had to look out for her.

She stopped at Amy Madison’s house, and went inside. He crouched down behind some bushes near the front gate. Maybe Amy was visiting her mom for the summer. But Willow wouldn’t get all avoidy about hanging with Amy. Wow, there was a creepy-looking demon face on the gate. What if there was something bad happening to her right now? Should he be storming in right away?

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Willow came out the door, looking none the worse for wear. And it was daylight, so she couldn't have been vamped. He jumped out from behind the bushes.

Willow yelped and dropped her books. "Xander, you scared me! What are you doing here?"

He helped her pick them up. "Trying to figure out what _you're_ doing here."

"I just, um, well, Amy's mom needs some help with, um . . . chores and I was--"

"Why did you tell me it was test preparation at home? Time to be honest, young lady."

She looked miserable, but he resisted the urge to cut her some slack. If she was in some kind of trouble, he needed to know. She sighed. "Ok, but you have to promise to keep it a secret."

He said, "I promise." He didn’t know if he could keep it. But right now he needed to make sure Willow was okay. He could deal with the fallout of a broken promise later.

"Catheri--Mrs. Madison has been teaching me how to do magic."

It was surprising how much it stung that she had kept a huge secret from him. They’d known each other forever, and up till now, she’d always told him everything. Seriously, _everything,_ no matter how weird or random, he’d heard about it.

Also, Amy's mom was kind of mean. Not as bad as his parents, but unpleasant enough that they'd always hung out at Willow's house. He couldn't imagine why Willow would want to learn anything from her. And since when was she on a first name basis with that woman?

He was probably looking as confused as he felt, because Willow said. "I know it's kinda hard to understand, but I want to be able to help Buffy. I'm not very good at it now, but Catherine thinks I can be if I work hard."

She looked at him, eyes so wide they seemed to take up half her face. "Can we keep this a secret for now? I don't want Giles and Buffy to know until I get good at this--so it will be more like a pleasant surprise."

“I don’t know, Will. This sounds kind of--”

“Xander, please?”

He wasn't sure this was anything approaching a good idea, but he couldn't say no to her, either, not when she did that thing with her eyes.

*** 

**Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered**

**Willow**

“A love spell?” Willow looked at Xander in disbelief. God, what was so special about Cordelia, anyway? Sure, she was pretty. But there were other pretty girls in the school who weren’t so horribly mean all the time. Could Xander be so oblivious to how much it hurt that he was so hung up on Cordelia? Or did he just not care?

He leaned up against her locker. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “I just want her to love me long enough that I can break up with her and subject her to the same hell she's been putting me through.”

Catherine had told Willow doing spells for personal reasons could backfire. But it didn’t seem like there was much of a downside to doing this one. It was about time Cordelia felt some of the pain she inflicted on other people.

“I’ll need something of hers,” she told Xander. “A personal object.”

***

**Giles**

Giles knocked on the door at the Madisons’ house, peering through the glass.

Just another day in the Hellmouth, with a misdirected love spell affecting all of the women in Sunnydale (and maybe other places as well, for all he knew). As an added bonus, he’d had to watch Jenny throw herself at Xander. As if it wasn’t painful enough just seeing Jenny every day. Even worse, two of his charges were responsible for all of it. He’d been furious with Xander; but Willow’s involvement was far more troubling.

Mrs. Madison let him in.

He glanced around the room--a bit dreary, with all the dark wood paneling, but aside from a few idols on the shelves, there were no outward signs of the witchcraft.

But years of training and experience had taught him that appearances counted for nothing. A tiny blond teenager could be the Chosen One. A ventriloquist’s dummy could be a tenacious demon hunter.

This ordinary looking house could be the site of dangerous forays into magic.

He sank down on the couch across from Mrs. Madison. "It’s come to my attention that you're teaching Willow magic, and it needs to stop."

She seemed unfazed by his glare. "Oh, it does? Why is that?"

"She's a bright young girl with a lot of potential. It's utterly irresponsible to get her involved with something so dangerous."

She looked at him like he was a particularly interesting bug. "You send her out to fight vampires with nothing but stakes and holy water, and you think what _I'm_ doing is dangerous?"

"That's, n--not the point.” he said, as his left eyelid started to twitch. “She'd be in danger from vampires just by virtue of living here." A familiar scent was drifting in the air--Damiana oil, a magic ingredient that Ethan had favored, back in the day. Giles felt even more unsettled.

"What makes you think I'm the only one who's noticed how powerful she is? Would you prefer that chaos sorcerer friendof yours take her under his wing? Or the gypsy spy? Or how about a demon?"

He flinched at the mention of Ethan and Jenny. Just how much did this woman know? Was it all from Willow, or were all of these incidents common knowledge in Sunnydale? How badly had he blown his cover?

"Nevertheless, she doesn't need you--"

She waved her hand dismissively at him. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"There's no need to get insulting. I understand far more about magic than you realize--"

"No, you don't. I'm not trying to insult you--it's just a fact. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't even know what you _don't_ know.”

“I think--” he began, but she didn’t pause for a second to let him speak, kept on talking in an almost earnest tone of voice.

“You’re so out of touch with your own magic that you couldn’t see her natural gift for it. You have no idea what it's like to have as much power as she does. How could you possibly know what's best for her?"

***

**Willow**

For the first time, Willow envied Marcie Ross. She was starting to see the upside of being invisible. She kept having flashbacks to pouring her heart out to Xander, and being rejected yet again, and going psycho with an axe. The worst part was, it was kinda her fault for doing the spell wrong, and maybe even for doing the spell in the first place. She sat on the floor in the back of the library, way back in the geography section. Sunnydale High had eliminated geography classes a few years ago, and she was the only person geeky enough to read those books for fun, so no one would find her here. She didn't want to explain to Oz about the stupid phone call that probably hurt his feelings and ruined things with him. She didn't want to apologize to Buffy again about accidentally casting the spell on her, or even talk to Xander ever--

"Willow?" Oh, crud. Giles should have been at the top of the list of people she wanted to avoid, and the library was the worst place in the world to hide from him.

“Oh, hi, Giles. I was just studying--regular school stuff, I swear.”

“Did you talk to Mrs. Madison about Buffy?”

Oh, god. “Well, yeah, but only after I realized she knew all that stuff already. She says it’s really obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.”

He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, then put them back on so he could glare at her. "I want you to explain to me what you've been learning from Mrs. Madison." That stern tone of voice was the one that he reserved for people being very stupid. She hated hearing it directed at her.

"Well, we talked last night about the spell. See, part of the reason it went wrong is that I sent the spell in a misdirect-y way. Away from Cordelia instead of at Cordelia. And I should have invoked Venus because she's the goddess of love, and instead I invoked Diana and she's the huntress, and that’s probably why everyone got so violent--"

Ok, from the look on his face, that was definitely _not_ the right answer. She thought about what else he might want to know. "We’re going over Roslova's magic ethical principles again, and we talked about how the spell violated the principle of self-determination, because I didn’t ask Cordelia if I could do the spell, and the principle of um, beneficence, because we weren’t trying to help anyone with the spell--we were more big with getting even with Cordelia.”

“How long have you been studying ethics?” he said.

At least that was an easy question. “Since she started teaching me.”

"What else have you been reading?"

"The Boston Coven's ethical guidelines."

"Do you have the fourth edition, or the fifth?"

"The fourth."

"I've got the fifth at home. I’ll bring it by tomorrow. Let me know if you need any other ethics books."

He looked--well, still mad, but less mad. Maybe he wasn’t going to kick her out of the Slayerettes after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**I Only Have Eyes For You**

**Giles**

He was sure he'd read a Watcher's diary entry about contacting ghosts recently. He picked one off the top of the pile and started reading.

No mention in Pilar Lorenz's diary about ghosts, though there was a mention of a prophecy about the Light and Dark Slayers. It was the third one he'd come across since Willow pointed it out last year. He wondered--could that be Buffy and Kendra? Could "Light" and "Dark" be as simple as skin and hair color? He made a few notes for future reference, and resumed his search for a method of contacting Jenny. Jenny had good cause to be angry--every day he thought of another thing that he could have done differently, another way that he could have saved her. Perhaps if he spoke to Jenny, he could apologize, and she could--move on.

He scanned the diary for discussions of ghost contact protocols, his hand fiddling with the rose quartz Willow had given him earlier today. He flipped through a few more pages. Had to keep busy. These days it felt like his Watcher tasks were the only thing keeping him from collapsing under the weight of his grief.

He heard a scream, jumped out his chair, and ran down the hall. Maybe this time he wouldn’t be too late to save someone.

“GILES!”

Oh, God, that was Willow. He thought she’d gone home already. He heard her call for him again.

“Where are you?” he yelled, running down the hallway in what he hoped was the right direction.

He found her at the top of the stairs near the lounge. Something was dragging her into a pit in the ground as she screamed for help. He ran to her and grabbed her arms, trying to pull her out. The ghost (or whatever it was that had a hold of Willow) was strong, and for a moment he feared she’d be swallowed up despite his efforts. He yanked as hard as he could, and Willow suddenly sprang free. The momentum sent them tumbling down the stairs together.

He got up and climbed the stairs again. The pit at the top of the stairs was gone. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. If he’d been just a few seconds too late, she’d have been pulled into the vortex forever. Or worse, trapped inside the floor when it returned to solid form.

He turned to Willow and grabbed her arms. “Are you all right?”

She was breathing hard, clearly still shaken up. “Giles, Jenny could never be this mean.”

“I know, it’s not her.” Jenny would never hurt Willow in such a vicious way, even if she were angry. It hurt to give up the idea of Jenny still existing, even as a vengeful ghost.

Willow seemed to understand. “I’m sorry.” There was a look of gentle concern for him in her eyes.

There was much more that he wanted to say, but just then the clock struck midnight, and Willow sprang into action for the exorcism, climbing up the landing to light the candle. Giles watched her struggle with the lighter, then took it from her and lit it.

Soon after that, a swarm of wasps chased all of them out of the school, and the time to say something to Willow had clearly past.

***

**Becoming**

**Catherine**

Catherine looked through the printout of the Kalderash woman's soul restoration instructions. The “one moment of happiness” clause confounded her. Why did they have the clause in there and _not_ tell the vampire about it? That seemed utterly counterproductive. Perhaps restoring an immortal being's soul permanently was too difficult, and there had to be some limitation on the spell’s efficacy.

Willow sat across the kitchen table from her, opening and closing a jar of twice-blessed sage. “Giles says that this is dark magic and could be dangerous. He said that it could open a door that I might not be able to close.”

Catherine resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “That’s a rather melodramatic way to put it. It’s dark, absolutely. It’s a revenge spell. Dark magic feeds on negative emotions.“

“So was Jenny evil? Would she have to become evil to perform the spell?” Catherine could all but see the wheels turning as Willow realized the inevitable follow-up question. “Do _I_ have to become evil if I want to do it?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. All of us have dark thoughts and emotions inside us. The magic draws on them. If you don’t stay grounded, it’s easy to get lost in yourself and your own feelings.”

Willow was watching her intently. “So why do we use it at all, if it’s dangerous?”

Catherine put the printout down. “There are some things that can’t be done by any other magic, and are still worth doing. This spell may be one of them. And if you work afterwards to stay grounded, you can minimize the after-effects.”

Willow straightened in her chair. “Do you think I can do it?”

“Yes,” Catherine said. “I believe you can.”

***

**Giles**

Giles gripped the spellbook with clammy hands as Willow started the incantation, wondering if he should put a last-minute stop to it.

He’d been going round and round about the soul restoration spell ever since Willow suggested it.

On the one hand, Angelus was bent on destroying the world. What was the worst thing that could happen if the spell misfired in some way? It wasn't as if Angelus could destroy the world twice.

He couldn't assume that Buffy could kill Angelus. Last year she’d been killed rather easily by The Master. It seemed only prudent to have a backup plan for the possibility that Buffy might fail to kill Angelus, or worse yet, be killed again.

On the other hand, there was Willow's welfare to consider. She was only sixteen, and had no sacred calling as Slayer or Watcher. Shouldn't he protect her from the risks of dabbling in dark magic, even for the best reasons?

It felt cowardly: if Giles wanted it done, he should do the spell itself. But the emotions involved in vengeance spells were tricky; someone completely untouched by Angelus might not be able to summon and channel the magic forces in the right way to restore the soul. But on the other side, someone deeply wounded by Angelus might get lost in the spell. Giles’s heart still burned with fury every time he thought of Jenny. If he combined that with a dark vengeance spell, he might lose control, and things could go very, very badly for all of them.

Willow might be exactly the right person to perform it; she was close enough to Jenny and Buffy to carry some righteous anger into the spell, but she was removed enough to stay in control.

Willow continued with the incantation, and he stayed silent.

***

**Willow**

A week had gone by since she'd done the spell, and Buffy was still missing. After the intensity of feeling the spell working, everything afterwards had seemed like a letdown. Endless sessions of connecting to the earth, to the whole world, blah blah blah.

When her restlessness became unbearable, she asked Catherine, “Can we do a locator spell to try to find Buffy?”

Catherine said, “We can try. But don’t get your hopes up too high.”

There was a flurry of ingredient mixing, and then Willow chanted the incantation. She felt a wave of magic flow through her, but when she opened her eyes, the light was everywhere, not focused like it should be.

“Did I do it wrong?” Another, more upsetting fear came to mind, “Does this mean Buffy’s dead?”

Catherine shook her head. “You did the spell correctly, and it doesn’t mean she’s dead.”

“So why didn’t it work?”

"I don't know. I've never seen one fail that way."

***

"--so I tried a locator spell, and it just went kerflooey, and the light was everywhere on the map, and when I tried a globe, it lit up like Buffy was everywhere in the world."

Giles didn't look particularly surprised. "The Council's locator spells have had similar results. Her Slayer energies are somewhere, but the locator spells have them mirrored everywhere. No one can explain why. Some Watcher in training will probably get a thesis topic out of it. I'm afraid we'll have to rely on more mundane methods to find her."

Willow picked up her newspaper again. Nothing unusual in Portland, at least nothing that suggested that Buffy might be there.

Giles looked like he was about to nod off in front of his newspaper. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He probably wasn’t sleeping well, and maybe there was something she could do to help with that.

It was either blurt it out, or lose her nerve entirely. "Giles, I’ve been studying memory spells, and I wondered if you wanted to erase your memory. Of what Angelus did to you."

"Oh, for God's sake, no!" He looked angrier than she'd ever seen him.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "What's the point of you remembering something like that? What did you learn from it? We've got forty-six volumes of the stuff Angelus did. We don't need another first-hand account of the badness."

For a moment, she thought he might yell at her again.

Then something seemed to shift, and he said quietly, "My memories are a part of me--and I want to hold onto all of them, even the terrible ones. The things I've experienced define me, and I won't wish them away. What I've learned is that I can endure something terrible, and survive it. And I'd rather not have anyone else poking around my mind."

She hadn't even thought about Drusilla. For someone who was supposed to be smart, she could be really be dense sometimes. "I'm sorry, Giles. I just wanted to help."

"You are helping. The patrolling, combing through the articles with me, all of that is helping. You don't need to do spells to help."

It didn't feel like it, not when they were getting only three out of ten vampires on their patrol, and they were sending Giles all around the country following leads that went nowhere. Giles was probably just trying to make her feel better.

It was so frustrating. She was learning a really amazing skill, and none of it was helping people the way she thought it would.

***

**Catherine**

Willow collapsed in the kitchen chair, resting her head on her arms.

"He said no?" Catherine asked.

Willow nodded. “I wish he’d at least let me start trying spells on patrol.”

Some distraction might help. "I think you're ready to start learning some healing spells."

Catherine walked to the kitchen island, and pulled a knife out of a drawer. After a deep breath, sliced it across her arm, just deep enough to draw blood.

Willow shrieked and backed away a few feet, nearly knocking over the jar of newt’s eyes.

Catherine tried to keep her voice even and hide her frustration. "It's pretty shallow. I'm sure you've seen much worse wounds than this by now."

Willow inched a little closer. "Yeah--but, how can you--with the stabbing and the slicing yourself? Doesn't it hurt?"

Catherine spoke through gritted teeth. "Of course it hurts. If you want to be a powerful witch, you're going to need to have to learn to work through pain. Now let's get started on healing this."

Willow grimaced, but kept her eyes on Catherine's arm, and started to focus on the cut.

After a couple of hours of fumbling attempts, including a rather excruciating moment when Willow inadvertently compressed a nerve, she closed the incision.

Willow stood up and caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. "Catherine--are my eyes supposed to be all black like this?"

Catherine said, "That's a sign you're struggling to control your magic. Sometimes they’re a sign of someone getting lost in magic, but that’s not what’s happening now."

Willow widened her eyes, moved closed to the mirror to inspect them. “How do I fix it?”

“Doing some repetitive tasks might help calm you down.” Catherine rubbed her arm, making sure the incision had completely closed, then added, “They’ll fade with time."

Willow sighed. “I’ll carve some stakes. We keep losing them on patrols. I just wish there was something more useful I could do.”

***

**Ethan**

Rumor had it that The Slayer had been on the run for weeks and her Watcher was trying to track her down.

Ethan had no use for the Watcher’s Council, but he couldn’t believe that no one there was competent enough to manage a basic locator spell. Something odd must be going on.

He lit candles, took out a globe, and searched for The Slayer, and instantly discovered what was confounding Rupert and The Council.

The Slayer’s energies had bounced all over the world, creating a funhouse mirror effect, with no way of determining her actual location. And if Ethan was reading the flow of the energies correctly, it was an accidental effect of some profound emotional need to be left alone.

It just figured that a teenage girl with no training at all would stumble onto a brilliant piece of magic like this. Ethan had worked for decades on perfecting his spells, and this chit had done it without even trying.

Still, it was an interesting piece of magic that he could study and tinker with. An ability to fool a locator spell might come in handy someday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Lovers Walk**

**Catherine**

"I know it would be wrong to do a de-lusting spell on Xander without his permission. But I could consent to doing a de-lusting spell on _myself_ , and then I'd be strong enough to just tell Xander no."

Catherine counted to ten. No matter how annoying the rules lawyering was, getting angry wouldn't help make Willow into a stronger witch.

"Well, you're right. There weren't the same ethical issues as your last love spell. But maybe we should re-read Mishima and talk about whether it was the most judicious use of magic. Was it necessary? Did it have consequences that a non-magical solution wouldn't have?"

Willow gave her a tragic look, but opened up the book.

***

**Doppelgangland**

**Giles**

The evening had been disturbing, even by Hellmouth standards, starting with the horrifying news that Willow was dead. Giles was still unsettled by the intensity of his despair and grief, and even worse, the way he’d impulsively embraced her when he'd realized she was alive. He'd done it without thinking.

As Willow grabbed her backpack and started to walk out of the library, he decided he needed to say something about the careless use of magic.  

"Willow, may I have a word with you?"

"I'm sorry, Giles. I didn't mean for any of this to happen!” She twisted her smiley-face necklace around her finger. “Anya told me she was looking for a family heirloom, and she made it sound really simple. I didn't know how dark her spell was going to get, or that it was going to bring Evil Me here."

"You’re not the first person to be tricked by a vengeance demon. They can be quite manipulative. But you need to be as careful about _who_ you do magic with as the kind of magic you do." That was advice he could have used when he was younger. Not that he would have listened to it.

Willow looked suitably chastened, so perhaps she’d learned her lesson from all of this. He’d put his emotional outburst in the mental file of Things Never to Think About Again.

***

**Something Blue**

**Willow**

Oz was gone, and it felt like he’d taken a huge chunk of Willow with him. He'd told her that she didn’t get any say in his decision to leave. Then he’d sent for his stuff without telling her. She’d given her whole heart to him, and it was obvious that she didn’t mean anything to him. It still hurt, and the spell hadn’t helped. Instead she’d endangered her friends and attracted the attention of Anya’s old boss.  

She brought Catherine cookies, her woefully inadequate peace offering.

Catherine put the plate of cookies on the kitchen table, and said, “It’s an inherently unstable spell. That’s the obvious reason it all went wrong.”

Great, now on top of everything else, Willow felt stupid. “Well, I guess there would be no point in learning all the other spells if you could just Thy Will Be Done to everything."

Catherine nodded. "Right, so when might it be appropriately used?"

Willow sat down at the table, broke a cookie in half, and took a bite. "Probably for a time when you're desperate, and there is no other solution, so you're willing to risk all the possible side effects, like nearly killing your friends by saying something dumb." She held out the other half of the cookie to Catherine.

Catherine took it, but didn’t drop her drill-sergeant expression for a second. "And what would be the best practices for carrying it out?"

"Basically saying what you want, with no excess commentary about anything else that might be affected. And I don’t know why you’re so calm after I turned you into an ice queen.”

Catherine shrugged. “No permanent harm was done, so we’ll chalk it up to a learning experience."

“It’s just, we keep talking about my magic screw-ups and ethics and it all makes sense in my head, and then something happens and it all just flies away in that moment.” Willow rested her head on her arms.

“You feel things very intensely. Your magic is tied into your emotions, and powerful emotions can create powerful magic. But sometimes your emotions get the better of you, and that comes out in the magic, and in the decisions that you make in the heat of the moment. If you keep working on it, you’ll reach the point where you can control your emotions and your magic. You’re exactly where you need to be, right now."

Sometimes the faith that Catherine place in her was downright scary to Willow. What if she couldn’t live up to it? What if she never got it together?

***

**A New Man**

**Giles**

Giles had let his guard down, had believed for a few hours that Ethan was engaging with him as a fellow human being, instead of playing yet another head game. Buffy had nearly paid a heavy price for Giles's mistake.

Ethan saw people as abstractions to play with; he probably thought a Slayer killing her Watcher would be an ironic joke. Ethan didn't care about the guilt that would overwhelm Buffy if Ethan's plan had worked.

Giles was done fucking around with this. A detention center sounded about right.

*** 

**Who Are You/Sanctuary**

**Giles**

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He’d hoped that the Pergamum Codex might have some useful information to help Buffy fight Adam, but so far, it had given him nothing but eyestrain.

Willow said, "I didn’t find anything helpful in the Nakahara text, but it referred to a prophecy in a book in Korean that kind of sounds like that Double Slayer prophecy, and there's this really cool computer program called Babelfish that can translate it."

Giles leaned over Willow’s shoulder and glanced at the screen.

 _Time of great evil, this old enemy is beating up in the world. Beautiful girl who have the power in the blood of her one of her dark, what to fight for and must meet the two together save the world from the thing and not the body_.

“Ah, of course,” said Giles, “‘From the thing and not the body’--that narrows it down. Good show.”

Willow bristled. “Well, I think it’s nifty that we can get a translation of a Korean prophecy right away instead of waiting until the poopheads at The Council get around to it.”

"Willow, translating prophecy is as much an art as a science, and the computer can't get us remotely close to the precision we need."

"Well, at least we know that it _might_ refer to a Slayer, so it's worth finding a human to give us a better translation. And I don't understand why you're Mr. Dismissive about everything that has to do with computers. I mean, this computer and this program are the result of hundreds of years of science and math. Why can't you at least respect the effort behind it?"

She closed the laptop and rushed out in a wave of righteous indignation.

Giles tried to work out what had just happened. Once Willow had seemed to think that he knew everything. Those days were clearly long gone.

Aside from the blow to his ego, Willow’s change in attitude probably wasn’t a bad thing. He’d certainly made his share of mistakes, and would probably continue making them. She was growing up, and it was best that she think for herself. Perhaps at some point, Willow would be able to take on his role. Her research skills were excellent, notwithstanding her excessive enthusiasm for computers. And she’d demonstrated more natural talent for magic than him since she was sixteen years old.

His thoughts turned to the prophecy itself. Ever since Willow had found the first one, he'd seen versions of it popping up everywhere. Now that Faith was seeking redemption, he had a hunch that Buffy and Faith might be the last chance to save the world someday.

***

**New Moon Rising**

**Tara**

Tara shifted slightly on the bed. Her arm had fallen asleep twenty minutes ago, but if she moved it, she might wake up Willow.

For the last few hours she'd felt nothing but happy surprise that Willow had picked her and well, lust, during all of the "making up for it" they'd done.

Under any other circumstances, she'd be happy and relaxed, but instead her mind was racing. When Oz showed up, it seemed like the Goddess had offered a perfect resolution to her dilemma. Willow and Oz would pick up where they left off, and she would have happy memories of her short time with Willow. Willow would never see her as a monster.

Tara had never expected Willow to choose her. And now she didn't know what to do. Willow had given up someone who obviously loved her. And Tara hadn't been completely honest. If she told Willow about her demon nature now, she would have to explain why she hadn't told the truth earlier. And she wasn’t sure she could find the right words to explain it in a way that wouldn’t hurt Willow.

There was always the possibility that Willow would leave her before it ever became an issue. Maybe they wouldn't ever need to have that conversation. Maybe she would never have to face the moment when Willow would see her as a demon. And since that was probably the most likely outcome, there was no need to upset Willow with the truth now. Willow had already had a lot of emotional turmoil this week anyway. She deserved a little happiness right now.

***

**Post-Restless**

**Catherine**

Tara said, “Levitation spells? Aren’t they a little--advanced? And you just d-did the Unification Spell.”

Willow scooted her chair forward and rested her elbows on the kitchen table. “C’mon, I’m ready! Everyone made the Unification Spell sound like a huge deal, but we just had some freaky dreams about The First Slayer. That was it.”

“It also m-made you kinda jumpy. And you haven’t been sleeping well.”

Willow stroked Tara’s hand, still clearly in the can’t-keep-her-hands-off-her stage of infatuation. “But that could have been all those mochas I had when I was studying for finals.”

Catherine put down the borage leaves she’d been shredding for a potion. “Hold your hands up in front of you, palms down, and keep them still.”

Willow complied. There was a slight tremor in her fingers.

“Whatever the reason, you’re not calm enough for levitation spells right now.” Before Willow could protest, she added, “I’m not any happier than you are about this. Giles never consults me before disrupting my lesson plans.”

Willow stared down at her hands as if she could force them to stay still. “How can I get calm enough? I tried yoga, but I kept worrying about whether I was doing it right and I think I made things worse.”

Catherine scooped up the borage leaves and tossed them into a bag. “Lay off the caffeine and the advanced spells for a week, and we’ll check then.”

Getting Willow on track to reach her full potential was going to be difficult, between the mousy little girlfriend trying to hold her back, and Giles pushing her as far as he could whenever there was an apocalypse.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summer before Buffy vs. Dracula**

**Giles**

"I got the Pergamum Codex indexed. Can the rest wait until tomorrow?"

Giles sighed. Willow was making it painfully clear that she didn't want to help him with the indexing project, and it was unaccountably irritating. He couldn't pinpoint any reason for it. After all the hours she'd devoted to helping him and Buffy, she deserved some time off.

There was a knock at the door. It had to be Tara, the only one of the lot who ever bothered to knock. "Hi, sweetie. Are you still working on indexing?"

Giles watched Willow's face light up, the way it used to for Oz, Xander, and even occasionally for him, and it hit him with the force of one of Buffy’s kicks to his chest. Tara wasn't just a rebound relationship for Willow.

Willow was looking at him pleadingly. He cleared his throat. "I think we've, um, made enough progress for today."

He went to the kitchen to make tea.

Bloody hell. Apparently, somewhere, he'd harbored a ridiculous and completely inappropriate hope that once she’d gotten over Oz, Willow might see him differently. See him as someone more than Buffy's former Watcher or an unemployed librarian. Or perhaps, he wanted her to see him the same way she had in high school, back when she’d had a crush on him.

It was an utterly stupid notion. Willow was a beautiful, intelligent, and brave young woman. Of course there would always be someone pursuing her. She'd never be alone for long. She deserved to be with someone her own age.

He'd always had a deep affection for her, admiration for her intelligence. Those were appropriate emotions to have. The other ones--the longing, the jealousy--needed to be set aside.

This attraction had to be yet another symptom of his feelings of uselessness this year. Nostalgia for the years past when she idealized him, and looked at him like he was the most important person in the world. He was just a typical middle-aged man fantasizing about recapturing his youth with a beautiful young woman. It was another sign that he should go back to England. Or buy that red sports car he'd been looking at. At least the car was a midlife crisis marker that wouldn't hurt anyone.

***

**Out of My Mind**

**Tara**

Every day Willow got even stronger at magic. It was unsettling.

Part of it was Catherine, who Tara just didn't like. It felt like Willow's power was the only thing Catherine cared about. Like if Willow woke up one day and couldn't do magic, Catherine would just disappear. Tara wondered if Willow would even think about doing things like "tinkering with the Tinkerbell" spell if Catherine weren't there encouraging her.

But it was more than just Catherine. The magic came so easily for Willow. In the space of a week she could master things that had taken years of work for Tara. It was kind of like the time Willow had tried to help Tara with calculus homework. Willow just had an intuitive sense of how to solve math problems, one that she couldn't explain in a way that made sense to Tara. And Tara felt, on some level, that she couldn’t trust things that she couldn’t understand.

Was it wrong to feel that way, especially the part about being uncomfortable with how powerful Willow was becoming? A big part of magic was reaching into yourself, and the part that Willow threw into magic was powerful. Tara had seen it from the first time they'd done magic together. Maybe it was kind of like being uncomfortable with Willow being short, or Willow being smart. They were just things that Willow was.

It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. But magic had been a huge part of how she and Willow had gotten together. Willow used to see her as more powerful, or at least more experienced. Now there were times when Tara wondered why Willow wanted to be with her. What was Tara’s role in the group, except "a witch, but not as powerful as Willow"? Willow was a genius with computers, too, so it wasn't like magic was the only thing Willow had to offer. Sometimes it just didn’t feel like an equal partnership at all.

Of course, it couldn't be an equal partnership. Tara was keeping a huge secret. Wasn't honesty a huge part of a relationship? But it would be very difficult to explain why she'd kept a major secret from Willow for so long. There wasn't much time left anyway. Maybe it was for the best if Willow outgrew her. It would make their inevitable separation a little easier, at least for Willow.

***

**Listening to Fear**

**Giles**

Giles walked Willow back to her dorm, her hand clasped in his. He told himself it didn't mean anything. He'd grabbed ahold of her when she'd stumbled earlier tonight, and was still holding on because she might fall again.

They walked in companionable silence until they reached her dorm room.

Tara beamed at Willow. "How was patrolling?"

"Great! I got two in one night!" Her legs wobbled a little, and he gripped her hand tighter.

He thought Tara's eyes lingered on their hands. It was probably just his paranoia. "It took a lot out of her. She collapsed afterwards."

"Giles!" Willow shot him an indignant look. To Tara, she said, "It wasn't that big a deal, just the excitement went to my head a little." She let go of his hand, and Tara wrapped her arms around her.

He watched Tara fuss over her, which was how it should be.

***

On the walk back to his flat, he heard a twig break underfoot, and whirled around, stake in hand.

It was Ethan. He should have known the government couldn't hold him forever. "What do you want, Ethan?"

"Revenge, of course. For throwing me to the soldier boys. But it looks like you're punishing yourself more effectively than I ever could, old man."

No good would come from this conversation. He walked away from Ethan.

Ethan followed. "It's all rather pathetic, isn't it? She’s less than half your age, and in love with another woman. Could you have possibly fallen for someone more unattainable? And she's the Slayer’s best friend, which means you’ll always be close to her."

The last thing he wanted was for Ethan to fixate on Willow. "She's a friend, and nothing else."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Right. She's pretty, brimming with power, and a bit dark--just like every lover you’ve ever had.”

“Not every lover.” Why was it that Ethan could still goad him into responding?

“No, just the ones who count. The ones who get under your skin. She does.”

Giles took a breath, reminded himself that DO NOT ENGAGE should be his strategy with Ethan at all times.

Ethan said, “Really, you clenching your jaw and trying so hard _not_ to hit me? That’s as much of a giveaway as hitting me. You might as well start now. We'll both feel so much better.”

Giles turned, pushed Ethan against a tree, his hands around Ethan’s throat. “Stay the fuck away from me, and everyone else in Sunnydale. I’m through playing games with you. Understand?” Ethan's face turned purple, and Giles reduced the pressure on Ethan's throat, just enough to let him breathe, while still making sure Ethan knew who was in charge.

Ethan nodded. Giles released his grip, and started walking away again.

"I could do a glamour to look like her, if you want,” Ethan said.

Giles stopped and stared at Ethan in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine Ethan’s ego allowing such a thing.

Ethan shrugged, “Wanting what you can’t have--it gets a bit desperate.”

Giles shook his head, and walked away. When he looked back a few minutes later, Ethan was gone.

***

**Tough Love**

**Tara**

Somehow a discussion about Buffy and Dawn and discipline had become fraught, and Willow was clearly unhappy. Maybe Tara was being overbearing.

Tara asked, “Do I act like the big knowledge woman?”

“No.” But Willow’s tone suggested otherwise.

This was getting exasperating, trying to parse out what Willow really meant from a bunch of mixed signals. “Is that no spelled Y-E-S?”

“S-O-R-T of.” Willow added, “I mean, I just feel like the--the junior partner. You've been doing everything longer than me. You've been out longer. You've been practicing witchcraft way longer.”

“Oh, but you're way beyond me there! In just a few--I mean, it frightens me how powerful you're getting.  ” She regretted her words instantly. She had an instinct that Willow’s power could be dangerous, but she couldn’t point to any specific thing that Willow had done that was dangerous.

Willow pounced. “That's a weird word.”

“Getting?” Tara hoped her smile and joke would lighten the mood.

“It frightens you? _I_ frighten you?”

Tara jumped off the bed, turned to Willow. “That is _so_ not what I meant. I meant i-impresses - impressive.” Maybe Willow would accept that evasion and they could end this argument.

“Well, I took Psych 101. I mean, I took it from an evil government scientist who was skewered by her Frankenstein-like creation before the final, but I know what a Freudian slip is.”

Oh, goddess. Willow wasn’t going to let anything go in this argument.

Willow asked, “Don't you trust me?”

“With my life.” Finally, there was something Tara could say that was both reassuring and true.

“That’s not what I mean.”

She was trapped in an argument that she could neither win nor end. “Can’t we just go to the fair?”

Willow said, “I don't feel real multicultural right now.” She stood up. “What is it about me that you don’t trust?”

It hurt Tara’s heart to hear that question. “It's not that. I worry, sometimes. You're--you're changing so much, so fast. I don't know where you're heading.”

“Where I'm heading?” Willow asked.

She thought if there was a way to open up her heart and mind to Willow, that Willow would understand, wouldn’t be hurt by something as trivial as words. But words were the only thing she had, and she was clumsy with them. Maybe she should say just that. “I'm saying everything wrong.”

Willow said, “No, I think you're being pretty clear. This isn't about the witchcraft. It's about the other changes in my life.” There was something so vulnerable about Willow, like she might shatter from one more wrong word from Tara.

Tara tried again. “I trust you. I just--” she looked down, tried to find the right words this time. “I don't know where I'm gonna fit in. In your life when--”

“When I change back? Yeah, this is a college thing, just a little experimentation before I get over the thrill and head back to boys' town. You think that?”

Tara thought of Willow’s reaction to Giles’ singing, of Willow saying Dracula was sexy, of times Willow’s had stared at a good-looking guy just a little too long. “Should I?”

“I'm really sorry that I didn't establish my lesbo street cred before I got into this relationship. You're the only woman I've ever fallen in love with, so ... how on earth could you ever take me seriously?” Willow had never spoken to her with so much bitter sarcasm before.

Willow started to walk out, and Tara had a sick feeling in her stomach that something terrible would happen if she let her leave now.

“Willow, please!”

Willow didn’t break her stride. “Have fun at the fair.”

***

**Giles**

“I hope this isn’t a return,” Giles said to Anya as he opened the box. “Everyone wants petrified hamsters and they're never happy with them.”

He looked up to see Willow leaning against the counter, her shoulders hunched up. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, her face a picture of total dejection.

“Ah, yes, because your good mood is both obvious and contagious.” He opened the box; to his relief, it was a shipment of candles.

“I had a fight with Tara. It was awful.”

His breath caught in his chest, which was an exceedingly odd reaction to her words.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from her to put the candles away, and to avoid her gaze for a moment.”

“Me too.”

He turned back to her, “You two don’t quarrel much, do you?”

“Never, until today.”

“Ah, well, it’s over.” There was a slight scrabbling sound from the side door, and Giles felt a prickling at the back of his neck..

“Over? How can it be over? I just found her!” Willow’s voice went up an octave.

“The _quarrel_ is over.”

“Oh, yeah.”

He heard the noise at the door again. He put the conversation with Willow on auto-pilot.

“You'll feel better when you've made your apologies and you'll know that you can fight without the world ending.” He’d given enough of these comforting speeches that he could do them in his sleep.

He grabbed the box and walked as casually as he could toward the side door, “I know it all seems bleak now, but as they say, this too--”

He opened the door quickly; one of Glory’s minions fell forward. He slammed the door on the minion, who pitched forward onto the floor.

\--shall pass.”

He gave himself a moment to feel pleased with himself, and then started thinking about interrogation tactics.

***

It hadn’t taken much--a quick broken bone or two, before Anya and Willow had returned with the twine, and the minion was cooperating fully with the interrogation.

Then the minion said, “Too late. Too late. Glorificus will find the witch, and there's nothing you can do to stop her.”

“Witch? What do you mean?” Anya asked.

Willow realized it faster than any of them. A look of horror crossed her face. “Tara!” She turned to run out.

The minion blathered on about Tara being the new one among them, but all Giles could think of was Willow running off to face Glory all by herself.

He yelled, “Willow, wait! I'll go with--”

“No! Call Buffy and go look in Tara's room, I'm gonna check the fair.” His heart clenched at the sight of her running out, her determination to protect Tara written all over her face.

He raced to his car, drove as fast as he could to the dorms. He ran through the building, darting around students, pushing one oblivious boy out of the way, ignoring the stares and shouts, until he reached Willow and Tara’s room. It was empty.

He told himself that she must be at the fair, that Willow would find her, and that both girls would be safe from Glory.

He ran back to his car, driving as fast as he could back to his shop. He stopped at a red light, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, and his mind flashed back to Willow, shifting so quickly from uncertainty and vulnerability to fierce bravery and decisiveness when someone she loved was in danger. It was something he’d always loved about her.

Oh dear god. He was in love with Willow.

The light turned green. He cursed and hit the accelerator. This wasn’t the time for emotional revelations.

***

Later that night, Giles stared at the X-rays of Tara’s hand as the doctor spoke with Willow about Tara’s condition, watched Willow grieve for Tara’s lost mind.

His feelings for Willow were a distraction they didn’t need right now.

Buffy needed her Watcher and Willow needed her friend and mentor. That was all he could and should be.

**Willow**

She was halfway to the Magic Box when it hit her--Tara’s mind might still be trapped inside Glory. If she killed Glory now, Tara could be lost forever.

Willow turned around and started running towards Catherine’s house. Buffy had been right about one thing--it wasn't the right time to fight Glory yet. If there was a way to restore Tara’s mind, Willow needed to find it first.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Gift**

**Willow**

Willow wiped sweaty palms on her pants as she watched Tara amble around the construction site. She'd only get one shot at Glory, one chance to save Tara's mind. The waiting was the hardest--but then Glory grabbed Tara by the shoulder.

Willow ran up, touched both Glory's and Tara's heads, and started the spell.

Glory's head was a twisty three dimensional labyrinth, pulsing with screaming creatures that drove through Willow's body like an electric shock. She saw colors that couldn't possibly exist in the real world, heard what must be thousands of people thinking, talking, wailing at once. Willow gritted her teeth and hung on long enough to hear a voice that she knew was Tara's.

She grabbed it, dug deep for enough magic to free Tara's mind and put it back in her body. Sweat broke out on her forehead, her legs started to tremble, and just when she thought she was going to collapse, the magic crackled in a huge explosion, and she hit the ground hard. The world blinked out.

When she came to, Tara was sitting beside her. Willow sat up, looked in Tara's eyes and knew that Tara was back in her body.

"I got so lost," Tara said.

"I found you," Willow said. “I’ll always find you.” She touched Tara's cheek.

Tara recoiled from her touch.

There was no time for hurt feelings, because they were still on a battlefield. Willow needed to get Spike up to the tower. She'd saved Tara, and now they needed to save Dawn and the world.

***  
**Tara**

She'd felt utterly lost and trapped with no way out, screaming incoherently because she'd forgotten all words. It felt like she'd been lost there for years, until Willow finally set her free. When Willow touched Tara's cheek, Tara felt a chill all over. Willow's magic felt stronger, wilder. It wasn’t exactly like Glory, but it was close enough to make Tara shudder.

Willow started running towards a huge tower, and Tara tried to follow, dodging confused-looking people all around her. They’d been trapped the same way that she had been. But Willow didn't know them, couldn't find them the way she found Tara.

She passed a headless robot body, watched as a bulldozer swung around to hit Glory. A crowd of Glory’s victims blocked the path to the tower. Willow stood with an expression of concentration on her face. She was talking to Spike telepathically. That was--impossible. Every text Tara had ever read on telepathy said that telepathy with vampires couldn't happen. Willow must have tinkered with some telepathy spell, or made up her own. The chill burrowed deeper, down to Tara's bones.

Then Willow raised a hand, and pushed aside the crowd with magic to let Spike through to the tower. Tara had seen Willow use magic against demons before, but never human beings. Especially not human beings who had no idea what they were doing.

Spike fell from the tower, and Tara could feel energy crackling in the air. It was from Glory’s dimension. Everything seemed to happen at once: strange-looking demons crawled out a building, a huge ball of energy appeared, a rift opened up and a dragon flew out.

She tried to scream to Willow, but the din was too loud. They were too late: the portal had opened.

Then Tara saw someone else fall off the tower

It was Buffy.

***

Tara waited until Spike and Giles had picked up Buffy’s body and started to carry her home, and Willow had finally stopped crying.

Then she asked, “What should we do next?”

Willow gestured in the general direction of the surviving brainsuck victims, who were wandering around the site. A grey-haired man was running in circles, shouting incoherently. A young woman stood over Ben’s body, keening and tearing at her hair. A couple of older men were piling debris up into wobbly towers, then kicking them down.

If it hadn’t been for Willow, that would have been her fate. Or she would have died.

Willow said, “I think they need a little magic push to get them back to the mental ward.”

Tara shivered, both for Willow and the brainsuck. “Are you sure? I mean, you just did an awful lot of magic back there.”

Willow tilted her head towards a young man who was swinging a wooden beam around in a wide circle. “Any better ideas for getting them back there with everyone in one piece?"

Tara shook her head.

Willow said, “Can you help with the casting?”

Tara looked over to the tower. A few pieces of debris dangled precariously from the top. “No, I--I think I need a day or two to regroup.”

It was cowardly and dishonest, but if she and Willow did magic together, Willow would realize that there was something wrong. Willow had loved her enough to find her in chaos of Glory's mind. How could she break Willow's heart after that?

Tara clung to a small fragment of hope. Maybe the wildness she’d seen in Willow’s magic was some remnant of the trip into Glory’s mind that would fade with time. Maybe if she just gave Willow time, things would get back to normal.

***

Tara spent the next few days at Willow’s side, as they buried Buffy, as Willow fixed the Buffybot, as they tracked down the demons that came in from Glory’s dimension, as they moved into the Summers’ house to take care of Dawn.

But as the days passed, Tara began to see the wildness in Willow’s aura as well. Her hope dwindled. Whether it came from Glory or from Willow itself, it was part of Willow now, and maybe forever. And it frightened her.

Worry and guilt ate away at her. She couldn't bear the thought of hurting Willow. It felt terribly wrong. But staying with Willow out of a sense of obligation felt far worse. Willow deserved better than that.

She’d have to tell Willow the truth soon.

***

**Willow**

Willow took Tara’s hand as they stood by Buffy’s grave. As they chanted the words of the spell to hide Buffy’s body from predators (supernatural or otherwise), something was just a little bit off. The way their energies intertwined was different. It used to feel like two puzzle pieces locking together. Now it felt more forced. But it had been a long time since they'd done spells together.

Tara gave her a strange look when the spell was over. She’d been giving Willow strange looks ever since Willow had brought her back. Willow had been trying to give Tara time, but she was tired of wondering. “Tara, did I do something wrong?"

Tara said, “I'll tell you when we get back to the house.”

Willow said, “I can’t wait that long for bad news. I don’t want to worry all the way back home. You know I'm gonna think of something much worse than whatever it is.”

Tara ran her hands through her hair. “It’s about me. And your magic. It’s way bigger and darker than I remember it. And it scares me.”

Willow’s breath caught in her throat. This was starting to sound like the fight they had right before Glory got to Tara, “It is?”

She tried to ignore the little voice that said that Tara might be right.

Tara said, “You’ve been doing all sorts of dark spells since I got lost.”

“Well, yeah. I had to protect us all from a bunch of people who were trying to murder Dawn, and then I had to give a telepathic pep talk to Buffy, and then I had to help kill Glory and get you back! I’m sorry that the spells didn’t bear the Perfect Wiccan Seal of Purity.”

Tara looked down at Buffy’s tombstone. “I know I owe you everything. I feel really ungrateful. But your magic frightens me, and I can’t be with someone if I don’t feel safe.”

Willow asked, “Isn’t there something I could do to fix this?

“No. We just don’t feel right together anymore.”

“Oh,” was all Willow managed to say. This should feel monumental. But her life had been a blur of feeding and tending to Tara after the brainsuck, casting spells to stay alive, watching the knights wound Giles, watching Glory send Buffy into catatonia, casting more spells to stay alive, fighting Glory with even bigger spells and then losing Buffy. Willow had used up all of her tears and frustration. This just felt like the hundredth awful thing that had happened in just the last week.

Was this what it was like to be Buffy?

Tara said, “I’ll move back into the dorms. You should stay with Dawn. She’s known you longer.” She added, “I hope we can still be friends.”

Willow kicked a clod of dirt. “You go on ahead. I’ve got a couple more things to take care of.”

If she just kept burying herself in tasks, maybe she could outlast the hurt feelings.


	6. Chapter 6

**Giles**

Giles stared longingly at the bottle of scotch. He'd finished his report about Glory's defeat earlier in the evening. It was full of carefully crafted sentences describing precisely how and under what circumstances Buffy had died. No mention of how it had ripped everyone's hearts out--just the dry, objective facts for future reference by other Slayers and Watchers. They would neither want nor deserve anything else. Now he wanted nothing more than oblivion in a bottle.

There was a knock at the door. Willow stood outside. He felt a ripple of her magic wash over him--perhaps the result of powerful spells, or her control slipping due to stress and exhaustion. "Oh, hello, Willow."

"Hi, Giles." She sat down heavily on the couch.

"Did you find any more creatures from Glory’s dimension?" he asked. He joined her on the couch.

"Maybe five or six. They were all dead already. Also, I gave the Buffybot a tune-up; she's good to go. And the cloaking spell for Buffy's grave--Tara and I cast that earlier tonight."

"That's good to hear. Tara had no problem with the magic?"

"Tara's--well---um, her magic was fine, maybe even better than before. She’s probably the only person I know who would come out stronger after being brainsucked."

He recognized that false cheery note in her voice. There was something she wasn't telling him.

She asked, "How are you doing?"

"I've been busy with reports. The Council hasn't located the new Slayer yet. They think she may be somewhere remote and the energy from Glory's dimension is interfering with the locator spells. They don't have any reports of any other unusual activity in Sunnydale, either."

She nudged him with her arm, "Hey--I asked how _you_ were, not the new Slayer or the demons."

How was he? Seething with rage at the world that demanded so much of Buffy's life, and then greedily demanded her death as well. He struggled to think of an answer that wasn't a lie, but wasn't the entire messy truth, either.

Willow picked up on his hesitation. "That bad, huh? It's ok if you don't wanna talk about it. Just, if there's something I can do--"

“I will. Thank you.”

She fidgeted a bit, seeming to work herself up to say something. "Giles, do I--seem different to you? Like, well, magic-wise?"

"I can tell you've been using a lot of advanced magic lately, if that's what you mean."

"In, like a scary kind of way? Because Tara is afraid of me."

Oh, for Christ's sake. He really didn't want to spend the evening assuaging Willow's insecurities. “What exactly did she say?” Perhaps this was just Willow’s tendency to over-think things, and once he helped her realize there was no real basis for her fears, the crisis would be over.

She looked down at her hands. “We had a fight, you know, right before Glory got her. And Tara said that she was frightened of how powerful my magic was. She tried to pretend that she didn’t mean it, but I think that was because I got upset, not because she actually didn’t mean it. And that was before all of the magic I had to do to after Glory got her. I do feel kinda different . . . and tonight she said that my magic was so scary that she needed to break up with me.”

Now he felt like a churl for assuming that it was all in her head. “Oh, Willow. I’m so sorry to hear that. That’s part of the work we do: there are sometimes difficult things that simply must be done. And sometimes we lose people because of it. You were brilliant when we were fighting Glory. Not just with your spells. The way you led the group after Buffy went catatonic, and gave Buffy exactly what she needed to come back and fight--that was wonderful.”

Willow’s face crumpled. “Yeah, I was so great that I got Buffy _killed_.”

Oh, wonderful. Instead of making her feel better, he’d managed to made things worse.

“Willow, if anyone killed Buffy, it was me. I pushed her so hard about Dawn. Maybe too hard."

Willow took his hand in hers. “No, you were right. I mean everyone in the world _and_ Dawn might have died if you hadn’t. Buffy was upset about the whole needing-to-kill-Dawn situation, but that wasn't your fault. And she loved you. That's why she told Dawn to tell you that it was ok. Because she cared about you and knew how you'd feel."

Something about the sincerity and vehemence in her voice just unmanned him, and to his utter horror, he felt tears well up. The next thing he knew, he was sobbing.

She moved closer to him and held him. He buried his face into her shoulder, sobbing so hard he couldn't breathe.

Finally he pulled away. "I'm sorry."

There were tears in her eyes as well. "It's ok."

He fished around in his pocket for a handkerchief, trying to compose himself. He hadn’t wept like this since--Jenny. “Angel. We forgot to tell Angel.”

"Crud. It isn't really news we can give him over the phone, right? But maybe getting out of town for a little while might be a good thing."

Giles said, "Are you sure you don't want to just take some time off? Go spend some time with your parents?"

She rolled her eyes at that last suggestion. "I'm sure. But let me do a healing spell for your wound before I go."

"That's not necessary," he said.

"I know you could tough it out. But if I'm going to be away even for a few hours, I'd feel better if I knew you were one hundred percent instead of even slightly distracted by pain."

He wanted to refuse. After everything she'd been through in the past few days, he didn't want to feel better at her expense. But she was right. They couldn't afford for any of them to be at less than full strength now.

"All right," he said.

"So, um, it helps if I can see and touch the wound, so if you could, um, open your shirt."

"Right," he said. It was foolish to feel self-conscious about this. She'd seen worse injuries hundreds of times. They all had.

"Ok, just putting my hand here, sorry it's so cold."

He felt tendrils of her magic gently brushing against his skin, small pinpricks burrowing underneath, exploring the extent of the damage from the javelin.

She did seem different from the last time they'd done magic together. He could feel her directing massive amounts of energy to his wound with precision, and without any perceptible effort. She was much more powerful now than she had been even a few months ago.

Her magic entwined through his, and traces of her thoughts and emotions surfaced. He sensed her concentration as she focused on repairing the torn muscle fibers. Her magic flowed from his side to the rest of his body, and his pain disappeared. He caught a hint of her pride and satisfaction before she moved on to repairing blood vessels. Finally, as she created new cells to replace the damaged ones, a wave of her magic surged through. It enveloped him, a burst of warm and sensuous energy, and his body responded to it instantly.

She gasped and abruptly finished the spell, and pulled her hand away quickly. His face flushed hot, and he could barely look at her.

“I’m so--so sorry--” he began, but Willow was talking, too.

“--never happened when I practiced this spell with Catherine, and I don’t know why it got all--well, you know--”

He sneaked a look at her. Her face was bright red. At least he wasn't the only one who was embarrassed. "Let's call it an unexpected side effect."

"Right, um, a side effect. So, I should probably go..”

***

**Willow**

The failure of the spell was eating away at her. Willow decided to drop in with Catherine on her way out to LA.

She glanced at the cauldron on the stove, the shelves of candlesticks, the scrying mirror hanging on the wall, while she tried to figure out a non-embarrassing way to ask the question.

Catherine rinsed tumbleweed leaves in the kitchen sink. “What’s the matter?”

Willow took a handful of leaves from Catherine and placed them on the drying racks. “I--um, had a healing spell go all, um, sexy. With Giles.”

Catherine looked her over. "That could be some neurons firing off in a random way. Let's test the spell again."

She dried her hands, rolled up her sleeve and sliced open her left arm. Willow healed it. It felt the same way as it always had, before all the weirdness with Giles happened.

Willow frowned at Catherine's arm. She didn't _want_ the spell to go all sexy with Catherine, but it would have been easier if she could blame the spell for everything.

“So you have no idea what happened?” she asked.

Catherine rolled down her sleeve. “No clue. Just remember to keep doing your grounding exercises. You look like you’re struggling a bit with your control.”

Willow sighed. She’d hoped for a real explanation and a specific solution. But she had a long boring bus ride with nothing better to do. Might as well do grounding exercises so the bus ride wasn’t a total waste of time.

***

The Hyperion Hotel was empty. There was nothing for Willow to do but wait. She sat down on a couch and curled her knees up to her chest.

Now that there were no distractions, her mind started turning the Tara situation around in her head. How could she have saved Tara's mind and destroyed their relationship at exactly the same time? It seemed tremendously unfair. Did Tara really think that Willow should have let Tara suffer, in body and in mind, just to avoid using dark magic?

Her hands curled into fists. _Think of something else, anything else._

It had been a long time since she’d had a spell misfire as badly as Giles’s healing spell had. Well, not misfire--she’d healed his shoulder, so the spell had _worked_ \--but gone so far off from what she’d intended. She blushed at the memory of end of the spell. It should never have happened. Attraction to men shouldn’t be part of who she was anymore.

Stupid brain, always focusing on her failures. She should keep meditating and connecting with the earth, so she wouldn’t make any more silly and embarrassing mistakes. She closed her eyes and focused on the molecules in a few specks of dust on the floor.

Voices roused her from her trance. Angel and his friends. They sounded happy. Even Angel.

Angel said, “There’s no place like--Willow?”

Cordelia seemed to realize that something awful must have happened. “What’s--”

She looked at Angel, trying to come up with the right words to tell him that he’d lost his one true love. Angel figured it out before she could say anything: “It’s Buffy.”

Willow nodded. She stood up, her legs aching from sitting in the same position for hours. Suddenly the room faded away and she was on the edge of the Hellmouth. It opened and dark energy rushed over her, a fierce wind pushing her backwards. The energy swarmed all over her skin, into her mouth and nose and ears, down into her lungs. Terror gripped her, and blossomed into pain in her chest. Her legs wobbled and she pitched forward.

It took a few moments for the Hellmouth to fade out, and the hotel and everyone in it to return. When it did, she was curled up on the couch. Someone had draped a blanket over her.

Cordy and Angel hovered over her. Wesley was keeping his distance, but his eyes were fixed on her. “Sorry,” she said. “I just had like--a really intense, um, vision, there for a minute. I’m ok now.”

“A vision?’ Cordy asked. “What did you see?”

***

"--for the last time, it was just the Hellmouth opening up and some really bad magic mojo coming out. That's it. No damsels in distress or whatever. It was in Sunnydale, not LA. That's all it was. End of story."

Wesley said, "It does seem significantly different from Cordelia's visions."

“Can we talk about Buffy now?” Willow asked. “I’ve been here a lot longer than I thought I would, and I really need to catch a bus home soon.”

Cordy looked appalled. “You can’t take the bus! What if you pass out like that again on the way home? You should at least get some sleep here tonight and Angel can drive you home tomorrow night.”

Ugh. The bus ride to LA hadn't been fun, exactly, but it beat a road trip with people she didn't really know any more. But Cordy was right, she could be vamp-food if she conked out at the wrong time.

Cordy led her up to her room. She lay down on the bed, still feeling shaky. As she drifted off to sleep, she hoped she wouldn’t have nightmares.

***

She didn’t have any nightmares, just dreams about stolen kisses in the library, kisses that left her breathless, her heart pounding, and the terror of being caught just making things sexier. Only it hadn’t been Xander. She’d been kissing Giles.

She awoke, desperate and aching for release, but feeling too weird and guilty to do anything about it. Instead she took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs to debrief Angel, Cordy, and Wesley about the Glory thing.

It was really mostly answering Wesley’s questions about how they’d fought Glory and how Buffy’s death had closed the portal (she couldn’t really answer that question to his satisfaction, probably because she still didn’t really understand it). Angel and Cordy sat through it and didn’t seem particularly interested in anything beyond the basic facts: that Buffy had died to save Dawn and the world. Cordy looked sort of shell-shocked; Angel was just impassive. Kinda weird, but maybe he was still in the “denial” phase, and his real feelings would come out later in the “anger” stage.

Finally Cordy said, “Ok, now that we’ve been over all of the magic mumbo-jumbo six times over, I’m taking Willow shopping.”

Willow wished she had a more coherent response than, "Huh?"

"The last thing Buffy would want is for you to run around in such awful clothes. Since she's not here to fix this, I will."

***

Willow stared at what seemed like an endless array of clothing racks at Nordstrom's. "How do you ever find anything here?"

Cordy said, "Hard work. But just think about the payoff. You'll look fantastic for your girlfriend." She glanced at Willow. "What did I say wrong now?”

Willow fought to keep back the tears, and lost the battle. She looked around for some place to retreat, found a bench, and sat down.

Cordy followed and sat down beside her. "Is she--okay? I thought you said she recovered from the brainsuckage."

Some automatic function of her brain sent the words to Willow’s mouth. "She’s fine. She just broke up with me." Oh, goddess, why had she said that? Cordelia would probably think Willow deserved to be dumped. And Willow couldn't blame her for feeling that way.

Cordy put an arm around Willow. Buffy had held her the same way when she’d been crushed by Oz’s betrayal. Buffy, who deserved so much more than an early death. That last thought pushed Willow from quiet, discreet crying into ugly, embarrassing crying,. Cordy patted her head and said soothing words that Willow couldn't really process. The fact that Cordy was being inexplicably nice to Willow made it even harder to stop crying.

It felt like hours later when Willow finally pushed the tears back and tried to compose herself.

Cordy stood up. “C’mon,” she said, gesturing to the clothing racks. “We have a mission. You’re going to look amazing so she knows exactly what she’s missing.”

Willow stared at her. “Is that your solution for everything? Shopping?”

Cordy grabbed Willow’s hand and pulled her up. “Well, duh. It works.”

Cordy dragged Willow over to a rack of bright blue shirts. “You should wear more jewel tones. Olive green and beige do nothing for you.”

“I read that olive green’s supposed to be a good color for redheads.”

Cordelia snorted. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to. I remember when your hair was brown. They’re talking about natural redheads, not bottle redheads.”

Willow spied a bright red fake fur sleeveless blouse on the clearance rack. She picked it up and held it against her chest, checking herself in the mirror.

Cordelia gave her a look of unmitigated horror.

Willow grinned. “What? I thought you wanted me to wear more jewel tones.”

***

After hitting what seemed like every shopping center in L.A., she and Cordy returned to the Hyperion just before sundown. Willow had never liked shopping as much as Buffy and Cordelia had, but she was finally starting to see the appeal. It had been kind of nice having an afternoon making mundane decisions about short or long sleeves, red or blue shirts, polyester or cotton sweaters.

Cordy hugged her. "Tell Dawn that I'm sorry about Buffy."

"Wait, you're not going?" Willow wasn't sure whether to be more wigged by this kinder, gentler Cordy, or the prospect of a long drive home with just Angel.

"Someone has to make sure this place doesn’t fall apart while Angel’s gone. So good luck, and please tell me you're going to burn that awful red furry blouse you bought."

"I make no promises," Willow said.

The drive back to Sunnydale was even more awkward than she'd feared. Angel had never been exactly chatty, but this silence now was particularly oppressive. She didn't feel like she could just fill the silence with her own words. She was sure she was one wrong word away from setting him off. He'd always been so demon-y when Buffy was in danger, and she hadn't seen even a flicker of emotion from him since she'd given him the news. Sooner or later he had to erupt, and she hoped to be far away when it happened.

Finally, they reached Sunnydale, and she directed Angel to the lonely place in the woods where they'd buried Buffy.

He looked at the headstone, didn't even smile at it. Oh, God, did he think it was too flippant? Or maybe it focused too much on what Buffy _did_ , and not so much the kind of person she _was_. The woman Angel loved. He must think that they were all a bunch of jerks.

Finally he said, "I don't understand. Why did I get so many second chances, when she didn't even make past her twenties? She was a good person, and I'm--. Why do the Powers work that way?"

Oh, right. The higher beings that gave Cordelia the vision thingies. Why did Angel and his team get specific instructions from them, while Buffy and the Scooby gang had to muddle through figuring out things on their own? Why didn’t the higher beings send Angel’s team to help out with Glory? Angel was right. It made no sense.

Angel sat there a few more minutes looking extra-broody.

Willow waited and thought of Buffy’s final resting place. Her body was here, of course, but where had her soul gone? Could it be in Glory’s hell dimension? Her stomach lurched at that thought. It seemed monstrously unfair that Buffy could be trapped for eternity in a hell dimension, after the sacrifice she'd made.

But what in this world was fair? Why should Willow think that fairness had anything to do with the fate of Buffy’s soul?

Angel cleared his throat, interrupting Willow’s train of thought, "I'm done here. Can I drop you off at the dorms?"

"Um, no. I'm staying at Buffy's house with Dawn. But could you drop me off at Giles's apartment? I need to talk to him first.”

Angel opened the car door for her. "Sure. I'll, um, stay in the car."

She wanted to smack herself for her own stupidity. Of course Angel hanging out in Giles's apartment would be uncomfortable for both of them. "Giles can give me a ride home. You don't have to stick around.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Giles**

When Willow finally showed up at his door, Giles felt a palpable sense of relief. Angel wouldn’t intentionally let any harm come to Willow while she was in LA. But terrible things seemed to happen to people in Angel's proximity with a rather alarming frequency.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked. "Cordelia called and said that you fainted."

"Fainted is such a dramatic word," she said. "My knees just got a little dizzy, and I was distracted by a really intense vision of the Hellmouth opening up. Lots of nasty magical energy, pretty scary, and I don't have any other helpful details."

"Do you think you could try to replicate it?" he asked.

She looked at him as if he were crazy, but sat down cross-legged on the couch. "I was doing my connecting-to-the-earth exercise before it started."

He sat down beside her. She closed her eyes and for a few minutes it seemed this was going nowhere--she could be meditating or even sleeping.

Then she started shaking all over, and teetered on the edge of the couch. Giles moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. As soon as he touched her, he could feel her fear overwhelming her. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, a stabilizing force against the unrelenting power of her vision.

As he held her, he got flashes of what she was seeing. He saw eyeless Bringers attacking a dark haired girl no more than five years old. The vision faded out for a moment, and a swarm of demons came roaring out of the Hellmouth, searching out humans, draining a few, and tearing apart the others. There was something familiar about them, but he couldn't quite place it. Bringers joined the fray, and dark magic crackled in the air around Willow, choking the life out of her.

Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Had to get her out--there was no telling what dying in the vision might do to her.

"Willow!" His mouth had gone dry, and his voice sounded small and distant, but she heard him. She pulled her magic back, and the vision slowly dissolved. She was still trembling, and he could see tears in her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm just--that was kinda intense. And scarier than the first one." She tried to smile for him, but he could hear the strain in her voice. "Giles, do you know what those demons were?"

"They looked like illustrations I've seen of Turok-Han vampires. There's a myth that Turok-Han are an ancient race of vampires. They were legendary as primordial, ferociously powerful killing machines."

Willow shifted her arm under his, slightly, but didn’t move away. "If they're mythological, does that mean that it's just a really weird dream, or maybe something like me tripping out on magic?"

"It's possible," he said. But there were also non-mythological parts of her vision. "The eyeless men were Bringers. Buffy encountered them a few years ago. They're the foot soldiers of The First Evil." Categorization, knowledge, these were his lifelines when the world threw out one apocalyptic challenge after another. Even when it seemed like the next one would break them all.

Willow choked out a brittle laugh. “Man, Evil never takes a vacation." Then, in a smaller voice, she asked, "How are we going to fight them without Buffy?"

He searched for the right reassuring words, but she wasn't a child any more. She was one of Buffy's warriors, as dedicated to the fight as he was. Far more essential to the fight than he was, now that she’d grown into her power. She deserved the truth, no matter how devastating it could be.

"I don't know," he said, his voice breaking a little. "There may be a new Slayer out there, but there was only one Buffy Summers."

Willow nodded. "Thanks for not sugarcoating it." She looked to be holding back her tears by force of will alone.

They sat huddled together on the couch, his arms still around her. He shouldn't be holding her. Not with the memory of the healing spell fresh in his mind. She seemed unfazed by the contact. He shifted slightly away from her, and she moved with him.

He slid his hand under her hair, ran his fingers down the back of her neck. She sighed and leaned back into his touch.

This was getting uncomfortably close to a vivid dream he’d had about her last night. Just as Giles told himself to gently move away, she turned to him and kissed him. A soft brush of her lips against his, turning his world inside out.

He grabbed her by her shoulders, pushing her away as gently as he could. He hoped she wouldn’t notice how much his hands were shaking. “This is a terrible idea.”

“Why?” she asked. “The world might end tomorrow. I want one night that’s about just feeling good. I want it to be with someone I trust, someone who understands me. I thought you might want that too.”

She was inching closer to him.

He told himself to move, to keep some safe space between them. He didn’t budge. “Willow, I value our friendship, and don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Giles, you were seriously talking about killing Dawnie, and we’re still friends. There’s nothing we can do tonight that can change that.”

He sighed. “Are you sure this isn’t some--remnant--of the spell the other day?”

She said, “I’m sure. I checked things out with Catherine, and I've been big with the grounding exercises ever since. This isn’t about magic.”

He looked in her eyes for any doubt, and didn't see any. He couldn’t look away--her eyes were such a beautiful dark green, with little flecks of brown, blue and gold in them.

“Please, Giles, I just need--”

He'd demanded so much of her, and would doubtless demand even more from her later; it felt wrong to deny her any comfort or affection she needed from him now.

He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her. She tasted of cinnamon gum and tears.

She kissed him back with surprising intensity, one hand gripping the back of his neck, the other unbuttoning his shirt. He gasped and pulled her closer, and somehow he ended up on top of her, driving his hips between her legs. She kissed him harder, pressed back against him. He slid his hands under her shirt, reveling in the feel of soft skin under his palms.

He ached to remove the last barriers of clothing between them, but couldn’t bear to pull himself away from her long enough to do it. Suddenly she tensed and shuddered, wrapping her legs tightly around him, burying her face against his neck. He kissed the top of her head and waited for her to come down.

"Upstairs?" he whispered. She nodded.

***

It didn’t last as long as he’d have liked.

It had been more than a year since he'd made love, and his body was starved for it. And both of them were exhausted, hardly up for a marathon.

Still, when it was over, she smiled at him and kissed him tenderly, looking more relaxed than he'd seen her in months. He lay on his side and pulled her close as she drifted off to sleep.

When he was sure she was asleep, he stroked her hair and whispered, "I love you."

***

**Willow**

Willow woke with a sense of unease. Something was wrong with the bed, or the sounds of the room, or--the person holding her. She shifted slightly on the bed, waking him up. He looked at her with soft eyes, and then kissed her.

The kiss brought her right back to last night's--activities. She’d wanted to be close to someone she trusted, someone who understood her, and Giles seemed the only person in the world who understood her. She hadn’t expected the sex to be bad, exactly, just not nearly as amazing as what she’d felt with Tara. But that wasn’t what had happened.

She was gay, and she’d slept with Giles, and she’d enjoyed it. Those three things didn’t make any sense together.

It was probably just the emotions of last night. Now that there was some distance from her despair, she’d remember that she liked girls--only girls--but his kisses were jolting her back into the present. His lips were warm and soft, and just so kissable. This was not the kind of thing she was supposed to like anymore, but when he rolled her over, his weight pressing her against the mattress, she felt a surge of heat pulse down her spine.

She shouldn't be turned on by anything that was happening now. Giles's mouth moved down to her breast, teasing her nipple with his tongue--and it felt like her whole body was on fire. She slid her hand between his thighs, then further up, watching him shudder at she wrapped her hand around him.

Last night was already done. It wasn't like one more time would make anything that much worse. She finally let go of the “should” thoughts as he pushed inside her.

Willow gasped with each thrust. It just felt so perfect, so right, every time he slid inside her. She wrapped her legs around his back, pulling him in deeper. He groaned and started thrusting harder, faster, and she pushed her hips up to meet his, her desire building until the wave crashed down on her. He continued pushing inside her, sending aftershocks through her.

He kissed her fiercely, pushed deep inside her, and came with a cry. They lay entangled together for a few moments, then Giles tightened his arms around her, kissing her neck. He murmured, "I can ask Anya to handle the shop on her own today, if you'd like to stay."

It was way more tempting than it should have been. But then an odd feeling of panic blossomed in her chest. She tried the deep breathing exercise Catherine had taught her, but they didn’t seem to slow her heart down.

It felt like she’d cheated on Tara, even though they were technically broken up. Last night everything had felt so hopeless. This morning it felt like she’d given up on Tara way too fast. Maybe there was something she could do to fix her magic and make Tara want to take her back.

She retreated into nervous babble. "It’s not like I don’t--I just shouldn't--I mean, I still love Tara. It would just be--weird.”

He looked--disappointed? Hurt? She wasn't sure. He turned toward the nightstand, and fumbled around for his glasses; she couldn’t see his face, and couldn't really study his expression and figure out what was wrong.

Last night she’d felt like a weary soldier in a war that never ended, desperate for a connection with someone close to her. She thought he’d felt the same way. Could he actually have been hoping for more?

But that was ridiculous. When Giles was interested in someone, it was obvious for anyone to see. He’d been so cute and stammery around Ms. Calendar. And ok, maybe not so stammery around Olivia, but his interest was still really clear to anyone who knew him.

Besides, Willow wasn’t the kind of girl that people fell for. Except for Oz and Tara.

Giles probably thought she'd used him to make herself feel better. And she did feel a lot better. That was a really crummy thing for her to do to a close friend who was also grieving and sad and lonely. And mentioning Tara when she was in bed with Giles? Kinda tacky.

"I'm sorry," she said, in a small voice. "I don't regret last night, or um, this morning, I just shouldn't--"

He turned around and touched her hand. "It's all right, Willow. Sometimes, when we're under great stress, we make mistakes." It was his gentlest voice, the one he used when she was in the depths of insecurity.

So he thought that extending the one-night stand was a mistake, too. That made things a little easier on her conscience. But not much.

She pulled the sheet around her. Modesty was kind of a lost cause at this point, but she felt a little more comfortable covered up.

“I'll see you at patrol tonight?” she asked. “I think I’m ready to try out telepathy in the field.”

“Of course,” he said.

***

**Giles**

After Willow left, Giles went out for a run. He wanted to run to the point of exhaustion, but his calf cramped up after eight miles. He limped back to his flat.

He let the shower water heat until it felt close to scalding, and then stepped under the spray. He scrubbed at his skin viciously, watching it turn red.

The only surprising thing about this morning was that he’d been foolish enough to expect any other result.

Of course Willow would hope to reconcile with Tara. Did he really think that Willow would want a relationship with a man twice her age, one with nothing but a history of terrible mistakes and failed relationships? Apparently, some part of him had. He was pathetic.

He'd thought Willow had needed him, but he wasn't what she needed at all. He'd been blinded by his own desire. He couldn’t even call it love. If he truly loved Willow, he'd never have jeopardized her chance to mend her relationship with Tara.

She’d been vulnerable, and he’d used her.

He stuck his head under the shower, his heart pounding as the water scalded him. He stood under the spray until the heat left him dizzy and lightheaded.

As he dried off, he thought about what to do next. If he considered Willow’s emotional needs first and foremost, the best thing to do was to avoid her and give her space to regroup.

But, as usual, everyone’s emotional health had to come second to the practical needs of defending the Hellmouth. He and Willow had to keep working together, but he’d keep things as distant and professional as possible.

He got dressed, made some toast, and sat down to start the day’s research session.


	8. Chapter 8

**Spike**

Spike wandered the streets of Sunnydale. It was early morning, but it was raining and the clouds were thick enough that no sunlight came through.

Sometimes he wondered why he even cared about staying out of the sunlight at this point. Buffy was gone forever, and was past caring about whatever happened to her friends. Why was he continuing to fight with them as if any of it meant anything?

He spotted Willow across the street.

“Oh, hi, Spike,” she said. She started breathing faster as soon as she saw him, which piqued his interest. She hadn't been afraid of him in a long time. He crossed the street, and then caught her scent--well, _that_ was interesting!

So Little Miss “Gay Now” had decided that she did like men again, and the holier-than-thou Watcher had jumped at the chance to shag a former student half his age. It was hilarious. He couldn’t wait until the rest of the group found out. Harris would come up with some highly entertaining invective to liven things up.

Then Spike made the mistake of looking at Willow, and it stopped being funny. Poor girl looked guilty and scared. Maybe shagging Giles was punishment enough on its own.

Willow had never insulted him, never hurt him on purpose, even though he’d kidnapped her, threatened her, tried to kill her before. He’d chalked that up to manipulation, a tiny girl using sweetness and vulnerability as the only weapons she had against a demon like him. But Willow was powerful enough to dust him ten different ways with her magic by now, and she still treated him the same way that she always did. Tara had always been decent to him, too. They didn’t need public humiliation on top of everything else.

He said, “It’s all right. I won’t tell. Nobody else’s business anyway.”

“Thanks, I owe you one,” she said, and walked away.

He was beginning to think that the chip, and everything that had happened since, had robbed him of every joy he used to have: killing humans, drinking their blood, reveling in their pain. What was left for him now that Buffy was gone?

***

**Willow**

Catherine scowled at Willow. "This better be important. You couldn't at least get me a cup of coffee before showing up this early?" She motioned Willow inside.

Willow sat down at the kitchen table while Catherine started making coffee.

Willow said, "It's about my magic. Is there a way to change it back to the way it was before I fought Glory?"

Catherine rubbed her eyes, fiddled with the belt of her bathrobe, and said, "No."

"What? Just no? Everything else about magic is complicated and requires a million explanations and caveats, but this is the one simple answer?"

Catherine said, "You've taken philosophy at college, right?"

Willow nodded.

"There was a Greek philosopher who said that you can't step into the same river twice. Do you remember why that is?”

“It’s because the river itself is constantly in flux, with water moving in and out.”

Catherine said, “Exactly. Your magic is like that. It changes with each action you take, and you can't undo what's already been done."

Willow frowned. She didn’t like that answer at all. But maybe there was some way that Catherine didn’t know about.

Catherine sipped her coffee. “Was there something else?”

Asking Catherine for advice about her personal life was a crapshoot, but there was no one else to talk to. Giles was part of the problem. Buffy was gone. Tara might be hurt that Willow had jumped into bed with a guy so soon after the breakup. Xander would be totally wigged that it was Giles.

“It’s um. After I had my second vision, things got a little out of hand with Giles, and we kinda--slept together.”

Catherine said, “And? How did it affect your magic?”

Wow, Willow hadn’t wanted a freak-out, but Catherine being totally un-freaked was weird, too. “There wasn’t any effect on my magic. I just--don't know what to say to Tara."

"I don't know why you have to say anything. She left you. You weren't unfaithful to her. But if you want to punish her, it’s a very effective way to hurt someone."

“I don’t want to hurt Tara!” Sure, she was still smarting from the breakup, but the thought of Tara being hurt made Willow want to cry.

“Then my advice is to keep your mouth shut.”

Willow nodded. Oh, goddess, had she slept with Giles because she subconsciously wanted to hurt Tara, to punish her for the breakup? That would be an awful thing to do to both Giles and Tara.

The damage was already done with Giles, but she could at least shield Tara from any pain.

***

**Giles**

Giles paged through the Watcher's Council’s latest report. The Council's sorcerers had finally confirmed that no new Slayer had been called. He'd held out hope that one was in a remote area, and couldn't be found due to the magical interference in the wake of Glory's portal. But the interference was long gone, and the most powerful locator spells had not found one. Faith was now the only Slayer in the world.

Giles started a list of resources currently available in Sunnydale:

  *        One Watcher, forty-six years old, prone to head injuries.
  *        One extraordinarily powerful witch and computer hacker, twenty-one years old.
  *        One less powerful witch, twenty-two years old.
  *        One normal man, twenty-one year-old, with no particular fighting skills, strategy, or abilities.
  *        One former vengeance demon, nearly 1200 years old. Tends to remember previous vengeance activities far more vividly and enthusiastically than more useful demon intelligence.
  *        One vampire with an experimental chip implant. Long-term efficacy of chip unknown. Has shown talent for manipulation of emotions of others. Inventors of chip unavailable for consultation/advice. Joined the team for personal/emotional reasons,   continued loyalty uncertain in light of Slayer's death.
  *        One robot with Slayer fighting abilities. Prototype designed by an amateur with no governmental or corporate assistance. Inventor is unavailable for consultation/advice about any malfunctions or maintenance issues.



_Right. Everything will be fine as long as the sex robot built by a disturbed young man continues to function perfectly, forever. **There's** a stable foundation for defending the Hellmouth._

He wished he could count on the Council to step in and assist, but the Council was bickering over the next steps to be taken. Roger Wyndam-Pryce was leading the charge to kill Faith and start over with a more tractable new Slayer. Probably to erase all reminders of Wesley's failure. But David Bingham's daughter was next in line to become Faith's Watcher, if and when Faith was released from prison, and Bingham was extraordinarily influential as well. Travers appeared to be stalling indefinitely in order to avoid having to alienate either man. Typical, really. Travers would rather let the Hellmouth fall to demons rather than make a decision that threatened his own power.

Giles could break Faith out of prison himself. But Faith had tried to kill Willow and Xander, stolen Buffy's body. These would not be easy trespasses to forgive, even if Faith were truly reformed. And the Council might try to kidnap Faith again if she left prison. Was she strong enough to handle all of the other challenges in addition to normal Slayer duties?

Then there were Willow's visions. Willow had never received prophetic visions before; what she’d seen could have been a manifestation of stress. It was completely understandable for her to be pushed to the limit. She was taking over some of Buffy's responsibilities (taking care of Dawn, leading the group on patrols) and keeping all of her own (repairing the Buffybot, the big gun for magic).

But it wasn't just Willow. Seers around the world were starting to report prophecies that something terrible, an adversary like no other, was planning something soon. That could very well be The First Evil.

The Council was bloody useless, as usual. Buffy had been the only one to make them fall in line--

\--and he realized with a sick certainty that there was a possible solution to these problems.  

But first he needed to confirm that The First was truly planning something.

***

**Spike**

Spike sliced open his hand, tossed a few drops in the air, and muttered the words to open the portal to Beljoxa’s Eye.

Giles said, "It might be dangerous. Wait here."

Spike had never backed down from a fight in his unlife, and wasn't about to start now. "No way. Red'll have my guts for garters if anything happens to you. She’s quite fond of you." He smirked at Giles. He'd promised Willow that he wouldn’t tell anybody else about her indiscretion, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t needle the Watcher a bit.

He heard Giles’ heart speed up at the mention of Willow, but Giles made no outward sign of distress. "Very well, come along then," Giles said, his voice just oozing with condescension.

Spike kept telling himself that he was doing this for Buffy. That she'd told them all to take care of each other, and that meant everyone, including the ones he couldn’t stand. That was the reason he endured the alternating insults and demands for help from the likes of Giles. It wasn’t because Spike had nowhere else to go so long as he was chipped. That would be pathetic.

For a supposedly fearsome entity from another dimension, Beljoxa's Eye was rather unimpressive. Spike doubted that anyone other than particularly sensitive children would be frightened by the sheer number of eyes. Restraint could go a long way in instilling terror, and Beljoxa's Eye never got the memo. The cage didn't help, either.

Giles jumped right into the interrogation. "Is it true that The First Evil has an army of Turok-Han vampires below The Hellmouth?"

Beljoxa's Eye said, "Yes."

Giles said, "When will they unleash this army?"

"The eye sees not the future, only the truth of the now and before."

Giles considered this for a moment, and then pressed on. "What can we do to defeat it?"

"It cannot be fought, it cannot be killed. The First Evil has been and always will be. Since before the universe was born, long after there is nothing else, it will go on."

Giles huffed, "I refuse to believe that. There must be some way to destroy it."

Beljoxa's Eye replied, "What, am I talking to myself here? There's no way."

Giles demanded, “Where is Buffy Summers’ soul?”

“It is everywhere and nowhere.”

Giles frowned. “Do you have any more specific information than that?”

Beljoxa’s Eye said, “No. But feel free to ask the same question as many ways as you want. It’s fun to see mortals waste their finite time.”

Spike decided that he liked Beljoxa’s Eye after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Willow**

Willow stood atop a crypt, watching for vampires. It felt strange to be up here by herself, instead of patrolling with everyone else below.

_Xander--_

Across the graveyard, Xander stumbled, bumped smack into a grave marker. "Ow! Will--" he yelped.

She felt his pain and frustration with her for a second before pushing it away. She couldn’t function if she couldn’t filter other people’s emotions.

 _Two vamps coming up on your left_. _And remember, you don't need to talk out loud. I can hear you think._

Xander turned, a bit shaky on his feet, and brandished his stake. One of the vampires took off running. The other took a running leap at Xander. Xander pushed the stake in the vampire's chest, but he must have missed by an inch or two, because the vampire remained stubbornly un-dusty.

Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Watching from above was excruciating.

_Giles! Help Xander! He's 30 feet away, behind the grave marker with the angel on it._

Giles jumped, but rounded the corner and drove a stake in the vampire's back.

Willow spotted a lone vampire shuffling up behind Anya.

_Anya! Behind you!_

"Ack!" Anya froze for a second, then turned and faced the vampire with her stake.

The vamp looked behind her, where Spike and Tara were approaching, and ran away.

Willow surveyed the graveyard. A few more vampires were retreating into a nest below a mausoleum. Buffy would have followed them down to finish them off.

But Giles was doubled over in exhaustion, and Xander was leaning against a grave marker like it was holding him up. They weren't in any kind of shape to head into the nest.

She looked over the graveyard for any stragglers, but didn’t find any. She started climbing down the crypt, trying to figure out what had gone wrong tonight.

Her telepathy had worked so well with Spike in the battle with Glory. It didn't seem any different than talking on the phone with Spike. But everyone else seemed freaked by the whole experience. She'd have to find a way to make it more comfortable for everyone else.

***

**Giles**

Giles watched as tiny points of light illuminated every section of his dimensional map. He’d done three different locator spells for Buffy’s soul, and all of them had the same results. Buffy’s soul truly was everywhere and nowhere.

He wished he could think of some other way. But their current situation seemed dire.

Patrol had been a disaster. One vampire dusted, several near misses, dozens of not-so-near misses. Incorporating Willow's telepathy was an excellent idea, in theory. In practice, it was unnerving having her barking orders in his head. (And then there was always the potentially humiliating prospect of her reading something he hadn’t meant to project to her.)

This wasn't a particularly vicious group of vampires. Buffy would have barely broken a sweat handling them. If there had been any kind of serious threat tonight, he and everyone else would be dead.

Beljoxa’s Eye had confirmed what the prophecies were saying: "the enemy like no other" was preparing to strike and that two Slayers, one dark and one light, would join forces to save the world.

It was possible that some other mishap might bring another Slayer into the world. Perhaps she and Faith would combine forces. But Giles felt in his gut that the prophecies referred to Buffy. For an enemy and a threat like no other, he needed the greatest Slayer who had ever lived.

He needed to resurrect her.

It violated the laws of nature. It would require harnessing frightening amounts of dark magic. It could possibly kill him and everyone else in Sunnydale. It might be the one of the worst things he’d ever do. But it seemed to be least terrible of his options.

 _I don't know how to live in this world, if these are the choices_.

He couldn't do it alone. He sent out a small flare of magic on the air.

***

**Ethan**

Ethan was enjoying a lovely glass of Sangria in Acapulco when he felt a light mist against his skin, a nearly imperceptible shift in magic. He'd recognize Rupert's signal anywhere. Ethan briefly considered waiting a day or two, just to prove that he wasn't some lapdog that would come running anytime Rupert whistled for him.

But Rupert might change his mind in that time. Rupert had never tried to contact him in all the years after Randall.

It was no use pretending. He was Ripper's, forever. Even if Ripper might never be his again. He teleported to the Sunnydale flat.

He looked beaten and exhausted. The Hellgod must have taken a toll on him.

"I need an Urn of Osiris and a lot of borrowed power, as fast as possible."

"Well, hello to you, too. Really, your manners have deteriorated since you started working for the Slay--"

Rupert glowered at him. Ethan suddenly understood. "She died? Well, she made a good run of it. Took a Hellgod to take her out. Better than the ones that die in that idiotic Crucia-whatever ritual."

"Shut. Up."

There was menace behind those two words, but Ripper hadn’t laid hands on him. Suddenly the implications hit Ethan. Rupert wanted to do magic again. The Urn meant a resurrection--dark, powerful magic. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of sharing dark magic, once again.

"So I take it you won't be overly _particular_ about the source of the power? It doesn't need to be white magic from virginal little witches who live in pristine mountain villages?"

He shook his head.

Ethan sat down at the table, as close as he dared. "Speaking of virginal little witches, why aren't you asking yours for help?"

"She's the first line of defense if something goes wrong. And I can't involve her in something so dark."

Ethan wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended. "Oh, I understand now. You have needs that she just can't fill for you. There are things that you want that are just too dirty for _her_ \--"

Rupert glared at him, a look that told Ethan that he'd better not continue in this vein, or Rupert might have second thoughts about asking him for help.

"I'll let you know when I'm ready. The power shouldn't take me longer than a week. We'll see about the Urn."

Ethan teleported back home. There was no time to waste. The sooner he got the power and the Urn, the sooner he could get Ripper--the _real_ Ripper--back.

***

**Giles**

Giles waited for Ethan in the secluded section of forest where they'd buried Buffy. He had dug into the grave, found what was left of Buffy. He refused to let himself feel anything. He needed all of his resolve for what was coming next.

He set a tarp out beside the grave. Moving the body to it would be a delicate operation.

Ethan materialized a few feet away. "Let me get that for you, Ripper." The body floated out of the grave, then landed gently onto the tarp.

As usual, Giles was torn between admiration for the grace and ease of Ethan's spellcasting, and irritation with Ethan's need to show off. "Give me the magic."

"No hug first? Fine, have your way with me." Ethan unbuttoned his shirt. Giles put his hand on Ethan's chest and pulled magic away. The magic pulsed through him, dark and intense. The wave swept over him, making him feel strong and energized and more alive than he'd felt in years.

Ethan grinned at him. "Shall we get started?"

" _We_ are not doing anything together. I'll do the spell. You'll stay a safe distance away, well out of sight if all goes as planned. If it doesn't, you'll warn Willow."

"You'd have a better chance of it working if you let me help."

"Absolutely not."

"Your funeral. Either way, it's bound to be entertaining." He tossed the Urn to Giles and stalked off into the woods.

***

**Ethan**

Ethan watched Ripper mix the spell ingredients.

"Osiris, keeper of the gate, master of all fate, hear us." Ripper dabbed his face with the mixture, then poured some on the ground. "Before time and after, before knowing and nothing, accept our offering. Know our prayer."

Ethan felt Osiris's presence for a second, and watched Ripper as Osiris tested him. He seemed unfazed by the wounds Osiris had opened up. "Osiris! Here lies the warrior of the people! Let her cross over!"

It looked like large insects had burrowed under his skin, and were pushing outward. He seemed to falter for a moment, but continued with the ritual: "Osiris! Let her cross over!"

The beings under his skin began to move and merge into one being. Ethan watched in fascination as the being moved up his chest and his throat until a snake emerged out of his mouth. It slithered away, over the Slayer's body, and disappeared.

Magic burned against Ethan's skin. Rupert was caught in it, but was still persisting: "Osiris! Release her!"

Orange energy surrounded the Slayer's corpse. Then flesh and skin began to heal. When she was whole again, she started breathing.

Rupert had done it. He'd brought her back from the dead. Things were finally getting interesting.

Unfortunately, Ethan had a few contracts to fulfill in the next few weeks, for people who wouldn’t think twice about killing him if the deal fell through.

When he got back, he’d see where the magic had taken Ripper.


	10. Chapter 10

**Buffy**

Sensations assaulted her all at once. Slowly she began to differentiate them. The earthy scent of freshly-dug dirt. The lumps in the ground under her back. Crickets chirping and the wind whistling through trees. And she could see a man, who seemed familiar somehow . . . "Giles!" she croaked out. Apparently her voice was just as fuzzy as the rest of her.

He looked exhausted and worried, but he smiled at her. "Hello, Buffy. I've brought you back."

Back. She sat up, looked around the cemetery, saw a headstone with her name on it. She'd died. And that place she'd been--where she hadn't felt pain, that must have been Heaven. Giles had ripped her out of Heaven.

But when she looked at him, all she could see was Giles. The one who had helped her even after the Council fired him. Giles, who had been there for her when her Mom died. Giles, who had been a better father to her than her actual dad.

He stood up, took her hand and helped her up. "Come on, let's get you home."

***

**Willow**

Giles had some Council business and had told them all to take a break from patrolling tonight. Willow decided to invite everyone else for a pizza and movie night. Maybe it could be a first step towards getting back together with Tara. And if things were awkward, then everyone else could act as a buffer.

The evening was going pretty well. Dawn was curled up on the couch between Tara and Willow. Willow had picked _Galaxy Quest._ It wasn't historical (so Anya and Spike wouldn't chime in every five seconds about how the movie got the era wrong) and it was funny instead of scary or sad. Plus Willow was enjoying Sigourney Weaver's cleavage, which meant that despite the incident with Giles, her appreciation of women’s bodies hadn’t gone away.

Then, just as the pig-alien exploded, there was a knock at the door, which unsettled everyone. They weren't expecting anyone. Xander looked through the peephole. "It's Giles and the Buffybot."

"I thought she was charging downstairs--" but maybe Giles had been “training” her again. Or maybe all of the stress was making her forgetful.

They opened the door for him, and Spike went very still, then whispered, "That's not the Buffybot. That's Buffy."

Willow's heart skipped a beat. All of the grief they'd been through over the past few weeks--the grief she thought would never end--was gone, just like that. Buffy was back. Dawn rushed forward to hug her, and Willow and Xander followed.

Willow asked Buffy, "How did you get back?"

Giles answered. "I did a resurrection spell."

That knocked the wind right out of her. Giles had done a powerful spell without her? After all the times this year that she'd done powerful magic without any mistakes? But then, the obvious explanation came to mind. She'd really, really screwed up by sleeping with him, and of course it would affect their work relationship.

She thought about the resurrection spells she'd read about. "Giles, how did you get enough magic to do this?"

He looked at Buffy, then down at the ground. "Borrowed power. From the Watcher's Council." He looked almost sheepish. If she’d resurrected Buffy, she’d be proud.

And the Watcher's Council had actually been useful. That was weird. Maybe it was the stopped clock that was right twice a day. Then, another, more pressing question came to mind.

"Buffy, do you remember where you were? I was worried that you'd fallen into Glory's hell dimension."

"I was--" Buffy looked pained for a moment, "You're right. I was in Hell. I don't really want to talk about it. But Giles brought me back."

Willow smiled at Giles. "Thanks, Giles." He'd made everything better by bringing Buffy back. They'd figure out how to get back to a normal working relationship later.

"Yes, thank you Giles." Buffy looked kinda blank when she said it. But she was probably still recovering from the hell dimension. Willow could be elated for the both of them at the moment. Buffy would be back to her normal self soon.

***

Later, after they’d settled Buffy into her old room, Willow sat down in the kitchen with Tara.

"Did Buffy seem a little weird to you?" Willow asked. "I mean, I know we don't have a lot of other resurrected people to compare her to. But she didn't seem, I dunno, as happy as I thought she would."

Tara said, "Maybe it was a difficult process for her. I mean, Giles did break all the laws of nature. That could be traumatic."

"Pfft. Laws of nature. I'd break them too if I had to get Buffy out of Hell."

The sad, disapproving look on Tara’s face made Willow feel guilty and defensive and indignant all at once. Willow would do anything for a friend trapped in Hell. Why couldn’t Tara understand that?

***

**Giles**

A week after the spell, and Giles was still feeling the effects. Every muscle in his body ached with restless energy, and his mind kept racing with new thoughts, new ideas for patrol formations or spells Willow could cast. He was hyper-aware of the steady thrum of Hellmouth energy, which he'd never even noticed before.

He hadn’t felt so alive in decades.

It was a stark contrast to Buffy, sitting across from him at the Summers' kitchen table. She still looked as lethargic as the day that he’d resurrected her.

"Buffy, I wanted to explain why I brought you back," he said.

"There was a reason besides getting me out of Hell?" she asked.

"Er, well, yes. Do you remember encountering the First Evil?"

She gave him a blank stare in response.

"It was Christmas, the year that Angel returned."

A spark of recognition finally showed up in her eyes. "Yeah, I remember now. Feels like another lifetime ago. I guess it was. Big talky evil that wanted to make Angel kill himself."

"Right," Giles said. "We have reason to believe that The First is planning to end the world."

Buffy said, "By talking people to death? That's all they can do, right?"

Giles sighed. "Unfortunately, no. I believe that they have an army of vampires just beneath the Hellmouth. At some point, they'll open the Hellmouth and unleash the vampires."

Buffy picked up an apple from the fruit bowl, stared at it, then put it back.

"So is that all? Just an army of vampires coming out of the Hellmouth?"

"Er, no. These aren't ordinary vampires. They're Turok Han, an ancient and entirely different race. They are the vampires that vampires fear. I'm afraid that we don't have much useful information on how to fight them. Until recently, I thought they were extinct."

Buffy was silent for a moment. Then she said, "And what about the new Slayer? The one that was called when I died? How does she figure into this?"

"There is no new Slayer," Giles said. "You and Faith are the only Slayers in the world now. There are prophecies that the two of you will work together to save the world." He glanced at her, trying to gauge her emotions, but she had the same impassive expression.

"I'm sorry to burden you with all of this now, before you've had a chance to recover," he said. "It felt wrong to keep this information from you any longer."

She shrugged. "So world ending, we have no clue what to do, and we need to work with someone evil who tried to kill us. Same old grind."

***

**Willow**

Tara had asked if she could have some one-on-one time with Dawn at the Summers’ house tonight. The exclusion really stung, but there was nothing Willow could do without seeming incredibly petty. The most obvious solution was the least palatable: accepting her parents' invitation to come to their house for the night.

Her parents were so utterly predictable. Dinner was the same Stouffer's meatloaf they made whenever they were home. CNN was on. There was a sickly-looking orchid plant on the table.

And then there was the conversation: "Willow, it's so good to spend time with you. How's Terri?"

Yep, her mom was just as annoying as ever. "It's Tara. And she's fine, mom."

"Really?"

Wait, how could her mother possibly know about Tara being brainsucked or even that they’d broken up--oh, she was talking about Tara's name. "Yes, mom. My girlfriend's name really is Tara."

Her dad finally looked away from the TV. "Honestly, Willow, there's no need to get bent out of shape for an honest mistake."

Willow seethed. Her mother could remember hundreds of complicated names of researchers and dozens of child development phases. Why were the "honest mistakes" only about the most important people in Willow's life?

But maybe that wasn’t fair, Willow had been lying to her parents since she was sixteen years old. Joyce had been a better mom to Buffy once she understood that Buffy was the Slayer. Willow had never given her parents that chance. Maybe the distance was a two-way street these days.

But even if she wanted to bridge the gap, tonight was not the night to do it. She had much more important things to worry about. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I've had kind of a long day, I'm gonna go to bed now."

Her old bedroom was exactly the same, too. If she stayed here too long, she'd probably turn back into the long-haired geek with frumpy clothes and an unrequited crush on Giles.

Though she was already halfway there on the Giles front. She'd been having flashbacks about Giles’ hands running down her back, the soft little noise he’d made when she’d kissed his neck, the intense look in his eyes as he thrust inside her . . . whoa--there was a lot of weird conflicted lust going on. Which should not be happening.

She thought of all of the ugly things that she’d heard people say about women who’d done what she’d done: _Lesbian until graduation._ Or _fence-sitter._ Or _Closet case who’s afraid to admit she's gay_.

Willow didn't want anyone, especially Tara, to think that she was ashamed of being attracted to women, or that Tara had been the stereotypical college experiment.

Her relationship with Tara was way too important for anyone to dismiss that way. And Willow didn't want to give anyone any reason to do that.

If this pesky attraction to Giles would just go away, it would make her life so much easier.


	11. Chapter 11

**Giles**

Willow had called a meeting to discuss financial issues. Giles glanced over at Buffy, who had the same listless expression on her face she’d had since she came back. He told himself she just needed more time to recover.

Willow had the floor. "Your mom had life insurance, but there are a bunch of huge medical bills that are coming in. Tara and I had been chipping in the money we'd be paying for the dorm room, but we don't have enough to pay both the bills and the mortgage."

Spike said, "Don't pay the medical bills. What are they going to do, repossess Joyce's shoddy medical care?"

Anya asked, "Aren't doctors paid to keep her alive? Why should they get money if they didn't do their jobs?"

Tara chimed in. "I'm sure the doctors did their best, and they deserve to be paid for their hard work."

"But lots of people work hard and don't get paid. I mean, Buffy and Dawn didn't pay their mother for taking care of them. And nobody pays Buffy for being the Slayer." A look of sudden inspiration shone in her eyes, and she turned to Buffy. "Maybe that's what you need to do--you could send bills to people you save."

Anya looked around the room, seeming to sense that something was wrong, but as usual, failing to identify what that was. “Well, you're providing a valuable service to the whole community. I say cash in.”

Buffy said, “Well, that's an idea ... you would have. Any other suggestions?”

Anya crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I mean, it's, it's not _so_ crazy.”

Dawn said, “Yes it is! You can't charge innocent people for saving their lives.”

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose as the conversation devolved into a fight about Spiderman that sent Anya storming out of the house, Xander following her out.

Giles tried to get the discussion back on track. “I think it’s fair to say that charging people for Slaying is not a practical option right now.”

"Fine." Spike said. "Then don't pay the mortgage."

Willow seemed intrigued. "I hadn't thought of that, but, you could probably save a lot of money that way. I read somewhere that the housing market in Sunnydale is so bad that they don't foreclose for years, so we could probably stay in the house rent-free until Dawnie goes to college."

Willow caught Tara's disapproving look, and added, "But maybe not?”

Dawn asked, "Couldn't Willow and Tara conjure up some money? I know I've seen you pull stuff out of thin air, why not cash?"

Tara said, "That's not what magic is for. Wiccans believe--"

"--that it's better to let little girls starve than violate their precious moral code. Fat lot of good they are."

"Spike, I'm not a little girl!"

Giles wondered why they kept calling for group meetings, when they all devolved into petty arguments like this. “The reality is that Social Services will be evaluating Buffy’s fitness to care for Dawn. They’ll want to know that Buffy is capable of paying the bills. If Buffy has a lot of money coming in and no visible means of employment, that will attract a lot of scrutiny from Social Services. Buffy will need to find a job. I’ll make contributions to help out, and anyone else who wants to can do the same.”

“Giles, you don’t have to do that,” Buffy said.

“Consider it a debt repaid." He wouldn’t have had a salary for the last three years if Buffy hadn’t demanded it from the Council.

Tara said, "About the job--I worked for a temp agency a few summers ago. If you're not sure what you want to do, they have a lot of options. And if one job doesn't work out, they have lots of others."

Giles had been about to suggest that Buffy work at The Magic Box, but the temp agency was probably a better idea, given that Social Services would be looking into Buffy's employment. He had never thought much about Buffy's financial situation. When Joyce was alive, there had always seemed to be enough money to keep Buffy and Dawn well cared for.

He hoped this was the only issue he'd overlooked when he brought Buffy back.

***

**Life Serial**

**Buffy**

Temp Agency Lady said, "You did a great job on our written exam. Do you have any preferences for work environment?"

Buffy thought about that summer she spent waiting tables. It wasn't exactly fun, but it seemed more interesting than sitting at a desk in an office. But she didn't particularly want to deal with people at the moment. "I think I'd like something active. Something that keeps me on my feet all day. But quiet."

Temp Agency Lady beamed at her. "I think I have the perfect job for you. It's with the Sunnydale Insurance Records Department. Make sure you wear comfortable shoes."

Buffy showed up the next day. The "perfect job" wasn't actually that bad. The records department had a huge room with really old computers that ran backup tapes. The numbers of the tapes would flash on a screen, and she'd find the tape, run down the hallway to find the computer to put the tape in, and take it out when it was done. Easy enough. It kept her body occupied, and occasionally she had a small moment of satisfaction when she’d found all the tapes before anyone could request more. And she was the only one in the computer room working the dayshift. She didn't have to smile at anyone or pretend to be happy. It was such a relief.

***

**Ethan**

Ethan sipped his coffee, watching Buffy walk to work, curious about the results of Ripper's spell. His glamour made him appear to be an average-looking middle-aged woman; he’d found that it was the best way to become all but invisible to just about everyone.

A dark-haired boy bumped into Buffy and planted something on the back of her sweater. Ethan's curiosity was piqued. As the boy walked away, Ethan came over to Buffy and offered his hand to help her up. “Are you all right?”

Buffy pulled herself up and said, “I’m fine, thanks.”

Ethan said, “You’ve got a leaf on your sweater, I’ll get it off.” He brushed the back of her sweater, palming the tiny item the boy had planted there.  

“Thanks,” Buffy said, and walked away.

Ethan glanced at the chip in his hand. Suddenly the chip exploded in a tiny puff of smoke.

***

Ethan tried looking online for tiny computer chips, but didn't find anything that looked like the one he'd plucked from Buffy's sweater. His curiosity about it would have to go unsated.

He got a second chance to figure out what was going on when he spotted the dark-haired boy a few days later, hanging around a beige van. There were two shorter boys with him, one dark-haired, and one with red hair, who immediately pinged "closet case" to Ethan.

The red-haired boy took out a pan flute; it was the same kind that Ethan had used once when summoning demons on a lark back in the old days. Oh, shit. If these kids summoned demons to attack Buffy, Ripper would surely blame Ethan for it.

Ethan murmured an incantation under his breath, a small sonic distortion spell, just enough to throw off the demons. The boy tried the flute again a few times, then finally threw it to the ground in frustration and got back into the van.

***

The van showed up again the next morning. The small, dark-haired, wannabe sorcerer attempted a time loop spell. Ethan murmured, " _Ricochet_ ," and the boy found himself trying to cast the spell over and over in vain. Ethan could have simply cast a counter-spell, but then he'd have missed the entertaining spectacle of the boy's mounting nervousness and frustration.

Ethan considered telling Ripper about these boys. But he’d always had a soft spot for fellow pranksters. As long as their pranks weren’t interfering with Ethan’s plans, what was the harm? What Ripper didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

*******

**Giles**

If he hadn’t known Willow so well, Giles wouldn’t have noticed the change in her dynamic with Tara. They were talking quietly about telepathy spells; although Willow was smiling, Giles could see a slight tremor in her jaw, a subtle hint of strain. She looked as though she expected Tara to lash out at her at any moment. That seemed highly unlikely, given Tara’s gentle temperament, but Willow could be tremendously sensitive to even the mildest criticism--

Someone waved a hand in front of his face. It was Buffy.

“Giles, zoned out much? I've been trying to get your attention for like five minutes.”

"Sorry. I was just lost in thought about--" _Must_ _think of something so boring no one will ask any questions about it_ "--the grammar of the Hindu Kush demons." It always pained him to lie to Buffy. But his concern about Willow might be misconstrued.

"Oh," was all that Buffy said in return.

He waited for a joke about how boring his interests were, but it didn't come. That was worrisome. She'd had weeks to adjust to the world of the living, and she still didn't seem quite herself. “What’s the matter?”

"Something's wrong at work. I keep getting a wiggins, like someone's watching me," Buffy said.

This was all rather vague. "Have you seen any demons?" he asked.

“Nope,” she said. "Really can't say more than the 'being watched' feeling."

Willow called across the room, “Maybe we could do a demon-locator spell outside the building. Or I could start looking up invisible demons.”

He hadn’t realized that Willow's attention had shifted from her conversation with Tara to his conversation with Buffy. “Thank you, Willow. That would be helpful.”

A few hours later, Willow reported that there was no sign of demonic activity around Buffy’s workplace.

Perhaps Buffy’s Slayer instincts were on the blink at the moment.


	12. Chapter 12

**Once More with Feeling:**

**Giles**

Giles glared at his book. The idiot who translated Diallo's history of music spells should be shot. It was far less coherent than the computer-translated gibberish Willow had shown him a few years ago.

Outside, a girl warbled through a song about bicycle locks. Giles tried to block her out. They'd scanned a copy of Diallo's text in the original Swahili last year. He could ask Willow if the translation programs had gotten any better in the meantime.

As if by his thoughts, Willow came barreling through the door.

"Giles, Catherine and I found the singing demon and there's a spell to banish him, but I need another caster and Tara's on a field trip in Monterey for her marine biology class and we have to hurry, because the demon will make people do a dance with death and he might be doing that right now."

She set a couple of books in front of him, and he glanced through them. It looked like she was right. He pushed aside his trepidation about magic with Willow--lives were at stake, and the possibility of another embarrassing incident was nothing compared to that.

They drew a circle, and Willow mixed lavender, twice-blessed sage, and yarrow in an urn and set the mixture on fire. He took her hands in his. They chanted the banishment invocation.

She gasped as their energies converged, perhaps surprised how much his had changed. It was one thing to know that he’d acquired enough power to bring Buffy back. It was another thing to actually feel it.

They sent a wave of magic to the demon, trying to push him back into his own dimension. The demon sang back at them with hundreds of voices, deafening songs that pushed the air from Giles’ lungs and knocked Willow down to the ground. He yanked her back up, pulling her close to him, holding her up. Willow shouted the words of banishment again, and their energies intertwined again, forcing the songs back. The demon managed a few more ear-splitting choruses, and then winked out.

He glanced at Willow, suddenly aware of how closely he was holding her.

Willow seemed to come to the same awkward realization, and took a few quick steps back. “I guess that took care of him. I should, um, probably finish my term paper for poli sci. Which is due soon.”

It occurred to Giles that Willow had been avoiding being alone with him until now. He’d seen her at the Magic Box, but she always came in with Buffy or Dawn or Xander.

He had no one but himself to blame for it.

***

**Willow**

After the spell, Willow was full of weird nervous energy. She tried revising her term paper for the third time, but couldn’t focus on it. Maybe doing something tangible and less thought-intensive might help. She was on her third batch of cookies when she heard someone come in. It was Tara.

“Hi. How was Monterey?” Willow called out across the hall.

Tara hung her jacket on the coat rack. “The aquarium was amazing. They had an exhibit with a giant tank of gorgeous jellyfish--I mean, moon jellies and sea jellies.”

Tara came into the kitchen and looked at the cookies. “Is something wrong?”

“No! I mean, I’m a little hyper because I had to do a spell with Giles--to get rid of the singing and dancing demon. Because the demon was dangerous and needed to be stopped right away. I would have waited for you otherwise.”

Tara asked, “Where’d you find the spell?”

“The Nyssan Codex.”

Tara gave Willow a long, searching glance. “Ok, I understand.”

Willow asked, “Want a cookie?”

“No, thanks. I just came by to see if Dawnie needed any help with her history assignment.”

***

**Tara**

She wasn't sure what to think. On the surface, it seemed straightforward: there was an emergency, she hadn't been available to help, so Willow had gone to Giles to help her cast the spell.

Willow had good intentions about the spell. But the dark magic part of it worried Tara.

There was also the cookie-baking, and the over-explaining, classic signs that Willow was feeling guilty about something.

Was the “something” Giles?

Back in the early days, when Tara had been really insecure, she'd imagine scenarios where Willow would leave her for someone else. There was Oz, of course. Or Buffy. It was obvious how much Willow cared about Buffy. And Buffy was slender and stylish and confident in a way that Tara never could be. Then there was Xander, Willow's high school crush. Though not her only high school crush. There was that time Giles had sung at the Espresso Pump: _Now I remember why I used to have such a crush on him . . . Oh, come on, he is kinda sexy._

Back, then, Tara hadn't thought much about Willow's crush on Giles. Tara hadn’t thought it meant anything more than her own high school crush on Julia Roberts. Ok, maybe that gave her a thing about cute redheads with brilliant smiles. But Tara was beginning to wonder whether Willow's crush meant a lot more. What if Willow had real feelings for Giles?

Then there was the question of Giles. Tara was rethinking every interaction she’d seen between Willow and Giles. Every hug, every time they’d held hands, every look. He’d always been a little more tender with Willow than with anyone else. (But maybe that was because Willow was tiny, and sweet, and vulnerable, and that would bring out the tenderness in anyone.)

She’d always thought Giles and Willow had some sort of kindred spirit rapport. But lately she’d seen something--fascination, or yearning, maybe--in his eyes when he looked at Willow.

The thought that Willow might move on so soon kind of hurt. But it was unfair to expect Willow’s fidelity when they were broken up.

She waited until Willow took yet another batch of cookies from the oven. “Hey, I know this is an awkward question, coming from me, but are you--interested in Giles? In like a romantic way?”

Willow said, “What? No. The crush was a long time ago, before I figured out I liked girls. I’m not interested in running back to Boystown.”

“It’s ok if you do.” And that sounded kind of bossy, like Willow needed Tara’s permission or something. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever get the feelings in heart to come out in perfect, eloquent words. Or maybe she was more bossy than she realized.

“You want me to date other--people?” Willow said, with a sad little catch in her voice.

“I want you to be happy. You don’t have to be alone just because we can’t be together.”

The wounded look Willow gave her made Tara’s heart ache, but it was better to dispel any illusions about getting back together.


	13. Chapter 13

**Giles**

There was a woman--dark haired, in her mid-forties, with an air of quiet authority about her--waiting outside the shop when Giles arrived in the morning.

"Mr. Giles? Melissa Trujillo. I'm with the Coven of the Sacred Oak in Sacramento. I need to talk to you. It's a matter of some--delicacy. Is there someplace we can talk where we won't be overheard?"

Giles' curiosity was piqued. Coven of the Sacred Oak was fairly well-regarded, at least by American standards. "Shall we talk in my shop? It doesn't open until 8, and my employee won't arrive until at least 7:30."

He let her in, and she immediately stared at the loft. Sharp eyes, or a keen sense of magic? Probably both.

“My black arts books,” he explained. “They’re off-limits except for customers that I’ve vetted beforehand.”

“You might want to consider concealing them,” she said. “Right now they’re a huge temptation for anyone who walks in the store.”

He nodded, hiding his irritation. What did this woman know about the realities of running a business?

They sat down at a table. She said, "Mr. Giles, a few days ago, a man approached one of the younger witches in our coven. He wanted her assistance to cast a spell to kill a Slayer named Faith Lehane."

It was hard to tell how much this woman knew about him; best not to give too much away up front. "And you approached me because--"

She looked straight at him. "I have reason to believe that the man was associated with the Watcher's Council. I know that you've protected Faith from the Council in the past. As a precaution, my coven has cast a temporary protection spell over Faith, but we can’t continue the spell indefinitely. We need to reserve some of our magic for more global threats.”

For a moment, he wanted to yell, “ _Now_ you’ve decided to concern yourself with protecting Slayers and saving the world? Where were you last year when we desperately needed your help on both fronts?”

But it made no sense to antagonize a potential ally, not when they were facing the imminent end of the world. “I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Do you think that you could talk to this fellow, pretend to go along with him while I break Faith out of prison?"

***

Giles had just seen the Trujillo woman out the door when Ethan materialized next to a stack of introductory magic texts. After the incident with Tara's family, Giles, Tara, and Willow had put up wards so that no invisibility spells would work inside the Magic Box. But perhaps there just weren’t any wards strong enough to hold off Ethan Rayne.

“I thought you left town after the resurrection,” Giles said.

“I had a few pre-existing obligations to take care of.” Giles didn’t want to think about what those obligations were. He’d seen enough of Ethan’s handiwork over the years. Ethan grinned. "So what's on the agenda today for a couple of sorcerers? Are we rushing to break a rogue Slayer out of prison? Or fighting the Council goons who are trying to kill her?"

"Nothing for you." He needed to get rid of Ethan soon. Anya's shift started in a half hour and there was no telling who else might wander in.

Ethan leaned against the counter, a picture of nonchalance. "You wound me, Ripper. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't need help from anywhere you can find it."

"I need help from someone I can trust. Not someone who serves only himself and chaos."

“So you trust William the Bloody, but not me? D’Hoffryn’s favorite vengeance demon works at your sodding magic shop for gods’ sake! It’s not me that you don’t trust. You don’t trust _yourself_ around me.”

Ethan stalked out of the shop, no doubt immensely satisfied with this parting shot.

***

**Willow**

Willow stifled a yawn and cursed her decision to cover Anya’s shift. The shop had been dead all day.

The door opened and she looked up to greet her first customer.

It was Ethan Rayne. Oh, crap. Should she be doing a general counter-spell now, on the theory that he’d probably cast one already?

He gave her a chilly smile. "Hello, Willow. Need any help with spells?"

"You--you're supposed to be in a detention center!"

He leaned against the counter. "That's what those Army fellows said, too. I disagreed."

"Also, once Giles finds out you're here--"

"He knows exactly where I am. And since I helped him resurrect Buffy, I must not be quite so dreadful after all. I'd say we're all friends now."

"I don't believe you," she said.

"Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think." He stalked out of the store.

He was lying, right? He had to be lying. Because the alternative was that _Giles_ had lied to her about getting power from the Watchers Council. Which didn't seem like Giles. But then he'd been secretive about the whole resurrection thing. Maybe this was why.

She needed to talk to him.

***

**Giles**

He had just finished taking the roast out of the oven when he heard the door swing open. He hurried out, trying to ignore the flutter of anxiety. He'd never escape the fear that Buffy or one of the Scoobies would be barging into his flat to tell him something terrible had happened.

It was Willow, and she looked distressed, but not panicked. The anxiety subsided a bit.

"Giles, I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner--it's just, well. I just ran into Ethan Rayne."

"Ah," he said. He didn't have the energy to feign surprise. "Are you all right?"

"He just talked. He said that you borrowed power from him for the resurrection spell."

There was no point in pretending with her. She knew him too well. "It's true. I needed a lot of dark magic, and I couldn't count on the Council to help me."

"But why Ethan? You could have asked me. I would have helped. I know I haven't always been Miss Consistency with the spells, but I'll always be there to help with the magic stuff, no matter how--complicated--my life is."

He hadn't realized that she'd take the decision so personally, but in hindsight it seemed inevitable. He'd become so accustomed to relying on her magic that he'd nearly forgotten her earlier struggles to control it. It had really only been about a year since her major magic fiascos, and it was understandable that her doubts and insecurities still lingered.

"It wasn't about doubting you. It was a dangerous spell, and I didn't want to risk you. If anything went wrong, you'd be the one I'd count on to protect the others. Ethan and I are expendable. You're not."

"Giles, you're not expendable! I don't know what we'd do without you. We need you."

He felt oddly self-conscious under her intense gaze. She was talking about the group. It didn't mean anything. She was looking at him with her full attention, like he was the most important person in the world, but that didn't mean anything either. She just felt things very deeply, and expressed herself the same way.

"Um, well, it's a moot point anyway, since Ethan and I escaped unscathed. I didn't want to discuss Ethan's involvement, because that would just create distractions that we didn't need."

"Yeah, I get that. One of those group meetings with people yelling instead of using 'I' statements."

"Quite."

There was an awkward pause. He thought about asking her if she wanted dinner, but didn't want to give her the wrong impression.

Willow glanced at the pile of magic books on the kitchen table. "Is there any magic you need help with now?" she asked.

This was the perfect opening; he’d been meaning to ask her this before he left for the Stockton prison. "Actually, yes. Do you remember the dimensional spell you did with Anya back in high school? I think contacting other dimensions might help us find strategies for fighting the First."

Willow's eyes widened. "You think Vampire Me might have some helpful hints for us instead of getting all big with the bloodshed?"

Giles pushed away thoughts of that disturbing night. "Er, probably not. But other versions of you might be facing the same threats we are. You might be able to find out new information that could help. I've been reading Barnett's thesis on interdimensional travel. It sounds like something you could safely tackle now."

"I'll take a look and get started on it right away." Her brow furrowed, and Giles could almost see her focus shift away to some confounding problem. "Giles, why was Ethan talking to me, instead of doing some weird magical prank like before?"

"He's trying to use you to get to me," he said, realizing too late that he'd said too much.

Willow picked up on it, of course. "Were you two, you know?"

"Yes. It was a long time ago, and he won't move on." He fought the urge to polish his glasses. She'd already seen the worst he was capable of. It was nothing more than foolish vanity to try to hide that embarrassing chapter of his life.

Willow considered this. "Well, my first boyfriend was Moloch the Corruptor, so everyone else's exes look pretty good in comparison."

He couldn’t help but smile at that. He missed conversations with just the two of them.

He leaned against the counter. "Willow, I know things are a bit awkward right now. I don't want to do anything that would jeopardize your relationship with Tara. I hope you can still trust me enough to come talk to me when you need to."

Willow looked away from him, blinking back tears. "I don't trust myself."

He wanted to hold her and comfort her, but he didn't have the right. He’d given it up in one selfish moment, and now they both would suffer the consequences for a good long time.

Willow slipped out the door and into the night.


	14. Chapter 14

**Ethan**

“ . . . and after all I did for him, he just pushed me away again. No gratitude for helping him bring back his precious Slayer." Ethan took another sip of beer. Atrocious, but what else could he expect in this dismal little town?

The pretty brunette sitting beside him made sympathetic noises.

"It's like I'm just a tool he thinks he can use and then put away whenever he wants."

The girl (Hedy? Hattie? Something that started with an H) said, "He sounds like a real jerk. Don't you ever wish something would happen to him?"

Ethan downed the rest of the beer. "Nice try, but I think vengeance tastes much better when you make it yourself."

She put a hand on his arm, gave him an earnest look. "But scheming is so time-consuming. Think of all the time you can save with one tiny wish."

Usually he admired persistence, but he'd reached his limit tonight. "Look, I'm here to wallow. You're here to make your quota. There are hundreds of gullible morons with sob stories out there. Go find one."

***

**Tara**

Tara's stomach rumbled. Xander had called an emergency Scooby meeting at the Magic Box at the last minute, and between classes and errands, she'd missed lunch.

"Where's Harris?" Spike said. "What kind of emergency is it if he can't be arsed to show up for it?"

"I'm here," Xander called out from the door. "Sorry about that. It took longer than I thought to get someone to cover my shift.” He sat down at the table. "The reason we called this meeting is that one of Anya's vengeance demon friends--"

Anya interrupted, "She prefers the term 'justice demon.'"

Xander looked irritated, but then, he always seemed that way with Anya. It made Tara cringe inside for Anya. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to date someone who rolled her eyes or sighed every time she said something.

"Whatever. The point is, this demon--"

"Hallie. Her name is Hallie."

Xander raised his arms in frustration. "Fine, Ahn. You tell the story."

"Hallie said that Giles did the resurrection spell with Ethan Rayne."

Everyone looked at Giles, except Willow, who suddenly found Drake's manual on preservation of borage flowers intensely interesting.

Giles cleared his throat. "Well, that's not entirely accurate."

Xander said, "So some of it is? Giles, what the hell? He's evil."

"I don't think the word 'evil' is appropriate. Ethan's a bit more complicated than that."

Xander rolled his eyes, "He tried to kill Buffy. And he tried to get Buffy to kill you. That meets my recommended daily allowance for evil. How could you do a major spell with him like he was someone you could trust?"

Spike chimed in, "The thing with magic, there's always consequences. People can be brought back wrong." It seemed to be part of the conversation everyone else was having, but Spike's gaze never left Buffy. Was this a return to the Slayer/vampire antagonism thing? Spike trying to get a rise out of Buffy?

Tara glanced at Buffy, who seemed more sad than angry, though it was kind of hard to tell. Buffy had been so withdrawn, almost impassive ever since Giles brought her back. Sometimes it was hard to believe she was the same person as the bubbly college student Tara met two years ago.

Willow said, "He just borrowed magic from Ethan for the spell. Giles did the spell on his own. And he got Buffy back safe and sound, and that's all that matters."

Willow knew about this? She couldn't have known beforehand. She'd been as surprised as everyone else the night that Giles brought Buffy back. Which meant that Willow must have found out afterwards. And then didn't say anything about it.

"So if everything was completely evil-free, why didn't you tell us?" Xander asked. Tara could have hugged him for asking, so she didn't have to.

Giles looked pained for a moment, then said, "My main concern was getting Buffy back, and once she was back, finding ways to fight The First. Compared to the end of the world, the details of how Buffy came back didn't seem very important."

God, Giles and Willow were even starting to sound alike now. Like the only thing that mattered were results, not what was done to achieve them. Tara’s fought a wave of nausea. She needed to talk to Willow about this.

There was more talking, and some yelling, mostly retreading the same ground, but Tara couldn't really focus on it. Then Giles said something about going out of town on business for a few days.

As the meeting broke up, Xander was still muttering about secrets while Anya tried to steer the conversation back to their wedding arrangements. Tara touched Willow’s arm and asked, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure, but can we get some coffee first? I was up kinda late researching dimensional spells last night.”

They walked to the Espresso Pump and ordered. Tara sipped her Americano and waited until the other customers walked away. “You knew about this Ethan guy already, didn’t you?”

Willow said, “Yeah. Ethan made a point of telling me a couple of days ago, so I talked to Giles about it.”

Tara tried to keep her voice level. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Once Giles explained why he did it, it just didn’t seem to be that big a deal. Just Ethan stirring things up. Plus I didn’t want it to become a thing, because not everyone would understand.” Willow seemed utterly unconcerned by any of this, which just made things worse.

“I’m worried about both of you. The dark magic you’ve both been doing--it scares me.”

Willow stirred her mocha and sighed. “I know. But sometimes there are problems that the purest, whitest magic can’t solve. And when they’re ‘lots of people are gonna die’   problems or ‘the world is gonna end’ problems, it feels selfish to worry about headaches or nosebleeds or whatever the dark magic side effects are gonna be. I can always worry about me later.”

Tara said, “I’m worried that if you don’t take care of yourself, the magic will swallow you up, and you won’t realize it until it’s too late.”

Willow said, "You worry too much. I'm fine. Giles is fine."

And there was something about the fierce way Willow defended Giles from criticism that made Tara wonder, once again. "Are you sure you don't have feelings for Giles? Feelings that might be clouding your judgment about him?"

Willow said, "Like I told you--I'm not interested in men anymore. Can we talk about something else now?"


	15. Chapter 15

**Giles**

Giles rushed down the hall to Faith's cell. The coven would only be able to hold off Evans for so long before he realized that they were stalling; Giles needed to get Faith out as soon as possible.

She was lying on her cot, staring at the ceiling, seemingly oblivious to the world. But when he opened the cell door, she jumped up immediately.

Giles let the glamour fade for a moment. "Faith, it's me. This place isn't safe for you. I'm getting you out."

Faith crossed over and grabbed him by his shirt. "How do I know it's you, and not some demon pretending to be you?"

Giles thought for a minute. "The first time we met, you said that you didn't know there were Watchers who were as 'young and cute' as I was."

Faith let go of his shirt and grinned. "Aww, you remembered that. So what’s the sitch? Is B ok? Cause I’ve had some weird dreams about her the last couple of months."

He grabbed her by the arm. "She’s all right. We need to leave now; I'll explain later."

***

**Xander**

When Faith followed Giles into the Magic Box, Xander's throat tightened. He suddenly felt like he was still pinned down on the bed, Faith’s hands squeezing his throat, choking the life out of him. If Deadboy hadn’t been there at just the right time to stop her--

After a minute or two, he could finally focus on what Giles was saying about some Council freak trying to kill Faith, and Faith needing a place where she could be protected.

Had someone replaced Giles with a pod person? First there was the whole Ethan Rayne deal, and now, Giles broken Faith out of prison. Faith. Who tried to murder Will. Who stole Buffy’s body. Who tried to kill them all by helping the Mayor. None of this made any sense.

Will was looking kind of scowly, so it was fair to say that she was not super-thrilled about this either.

Buffy rubbed the back of her neck. “Giles, I’m really not sure this is a good idea right now. I need to feel like everyone around me has my back. And I’m not there with Faith.”

When Faith finally spoke, she was quieter, more subdued than Xander remembered her. “I get that. I think Angel will let me crash with him.”

Buffy winced. There was a moment where Xander thought that she’d cave rather than let Faith stay with Angel. What was so great about Angel, anyway, that had Buffy so hung up on him, even years later?

But then Buffy said, "Ok."

Giles made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon, but said, “Very well. I’ll let the coven know, and perhaps they can send someone to help with magic.”

Anya said, “Glad that’s settled." She crossed the room to stand near Faith, and gave her a friendly smile. "Can you come to the wedding? One of our tables is going to be mixed humans and demons. I’m looking for humans that aren’t easily spooked.”

Xander groaned. “Ahn, no. Just. No.”

“Why not?” Anya asked. Why the hell couldn’t she ever learn to figure out stuff on her own? Why did she always have to have everything spelled out for her?

Xander said, “She tried to kill Willow. And you were here when she stole Buffy’s body.”

Anya said, “So what? Spike tried to kill Willow, and we still like him. I tried to kill Willow, and you’re marrying me. I thought we were letting people’s pasts stay in the past.”

That was a disturbing thought; he was going to marry someone who once tried to kill his best friend, and who had killed more people than Faith. Though Anya’s “killing people” phase was over, because she wasn’t a demon anymore.

Willow asked, “Why don't you invite Cordelia to be your extra human? She knows about demons and Xander’s family, so she’d be double-prepared.”

This was just gonna be one of those pod-person days.

“Fine. Let’s invite Cordy.” He didn’t really want either of them in Sunnydale, but if this became a serious discussion, he’d have to tell Anya about what Faith had tried to do to him. He just couldn’t. And what did that say about their relationship if he couldn’t tell her the truth about something important that had happened to him?

***

**Giles**

It felt like a terrible mistake to drop Faith off at Angel’s; Giles almost thought she’d be better off on her own. But the only thing harder than arguing with a Slayer that had made up her mind was arguing with _two_ Slayers who had both made up their minds. And Faith seemed to truly have made a bond with Angel, however ill-advised Giles might think that was. Like so many of the choices Giles was making lately, it seemed like the least terrible option.

Giles drove from Los Angeles to the coven’s safe house. The witches had Evans bound with a thick layer of magic from head to toe. Evans didn’t speak, but there was a silent plea to Giles in his eyes. Giles nodded at the High Priestess, and said, “Thank you for your assistance. I’ll handle this from here.”

He tossed Evans into the passenger seat of his car and drove to a secluded part of the highway about one hundred miles away. He dragged Evans from the car and released him from the magic bonds. He didn’t want to risk the bonds interfering with the magic he was about to do.

Evans spoke, his voice thick from lack of use. “Rupert, you don’t want to do this. I did this because I had to. Everyone knows that your Slayer came back a zombie, and the rogue Slayer’s irredeemable. The world needs a real Slayer--”

Evans was on his knees. Giles grabbed him by his hair, forcing him to look up. “Buffy’s the finest Slayer who ever lived. And despite what Faith has done, she is still a Slayer. Our job is to support and to help them. We should serve them, not the other way around.”

Evans said, “So you’re going to kill me to help them?”

Giles focused, and hit Evans with a blast of magic; Evans howled in agony. “No, I’m not. It’s much more effective if you survive and feel pain like this every time you think of this plot, or think of Faith. You’re a bungler, Evans. If you died trying to kill Faith, others would think it was due to your incompetence, and would try again. But this lets everyone know that Faith is protected by powerful magic.”

He got back in his car. His hands shook; he gripped the steering wheel tightly as he drove away. The nearest town, Silvestre, was twenty miles away from here; Evans could make it there, but it would be a long and painful walk. That thought left Giles with a feeling of grim satisfaction.


	16. Chapter 16

**Willow**

Willow checked the mixture of herbs and clay, then smeared some of it under her eyes. She knelt down in the circle of sand, and took a deep breath. This was the first major spell she'd done since Tara practically ordered her to date other people. Part of her still wanted to crumple into a ball and wallow in the pain of rejection. But Giles needed information and she could do this. She'd managed to bring her vampire double from another dimension by accident; she was much stronger now.

She reached out to the infinite number of dimensions, searching for a version of herself as an anchor. Versions of herself echoed back, intensifying into cacophony. She sifted through to her other-selves, trying to find one also fighting The First and the Turok Han. There was one dimension where the energy from her aura seemed to burn brighter, and the sense of fighting Turok-Han was strongest. She dove into it.

A room materialized around her, and she blinked. She was in a brightly-lit conference room with a polished marble floor, and there were _three_ of her seated at a table.

The one in the middle smiled at her. "Hi! Welcome to WillowCon 2005."

"2005?" Willow repeated, too disoriented to ask a more coherent question.

"Yep. There can be some temporal shifts with interdimensional travel. Let me give you a name tag--you can be Willow-Red. I thought the color designations would be more humanizing than numbers or letters." Willow found this other Willow unnerving. Was she herself always this weirdly cheery and efficient?

The other Willows had name tags as well: Willow-Green was the one who'd spoken to her, Willow-Orange on the left, and Willow-Blue on the right. This was going to be confusing, so she searched for other distinguishing marks for the other Willows. Willow-Green had her hair cut in a short bob. Willow-Orange had kept her hair the darker natural color. Willow-Blue had longish dyed-red hair, and was wearing that long green skirt that Tara had always liked.

Willow-Green said, "I think we're all here now.” She sat down, drummed her fingers on the table. “We're gathered here to share strategies and insights on fighting The First's army of vampires. I'm Willow Rosenberg-Finn, and we've been developing robots and cyborgs to fight the Turok-Han. We've integrated magic and volunteers from the human and demon populations along with the latest in robotic technology."

Rosenberg-Finn? As in <i> _Riley </i>_ Finn? Willow forced herself to focus on the world-savey part, not get distracted by the distorted mirror alternate-dimensional stuff.

"I'm Willow-Orange, Dr. Willow Rosenberg. I'm working with my colleagues on developing a modified airborne hantavirus to kill the Turok-Han vampires. We think we can design it to be harmless to humans."

"I'm Willow-Blue, Willow Rosenberg. I'm working with a lot of other witches and sorcerers on a reality-altering spell. We're still discussing the details of it, but we're going to change reality to stop the Turok-Han."

Once, when Willow had been fretting about her class rank, Ms. Calendar had told her, “Don’t worry about other people. Just focus on being the best Willow Rosenberg you can be.”

Clearly, she hadn’t become the best Willow Rosenberg she could have been.

Now it was her turn to talk, and she had a big load of nothing to share. Nothing compared to the impressive strategies the other Willows had presented.

She cleared her throat, and said, "I'm Willow-Red, Willow Rosenberg. We just found out The First and the Turok-Han, and um, we're still looking for ideas. This was kind of an introductory step for us. We're not as far along as all of you are."

Willow-Green gave her an encouraging smile. (Or maybe it was a patronizing smile; since Willow usually didn’t see her own facial expressions, she found them hard to read on Willow-Green’s face.) "Why don't we break into pairs and see if we have any helpful details to share one-on-one."

Willow found herself paired with Willow-Green first. Willow-Green chattered away about robotics; Willow tried to think if this was something that she could do in her own world. But Willow-Green was a little older than her, and her robotics stuff sounded way more advanced than any of the dabblings with Ted's hand or the Buffybot. When it was clear that they didn't have any other world-saving topics to discuss, Willow asked, "So, I'm dying to know: is the Finn for Riley Finn? Because there's a Riley Finn in my universe."

Willow-Green grinned. "Yep, that's my husband. My company designs demon-fighting robots for the army, and he was helping us test them in the field. Nothing more romantic than watching robots shred demons into bits. So what's _your_ Riley like?"

"Well, um, he dated Buffy for a while, and well, they broke up, and he's back in the army, I think he's somewhere in Central America now. He's a nice guy." She sort of cringed at the last part. Riley was nice, most of the time, but the way he'd left Buffy had been anything but nice. She hoped that Willow-Green's husband wasn't sneaking around getting bitten by vampires. And that Willow-Green wouldn't freak to find out an alternate version of her husband had slept with Buffy.

"He dated Buffy?" Willow-Green’s brow furrowed. "They must have gotten along in your world better than they do in mine. In mine they’re just super awkward whenever they talk to each other.”

They switched pairs, and Willow found herself talking to Willow-Orange. The germ warfare stuff was even more out of Willow’s league technically than the robotics.

Willow asked, “How long have you been working on those viruses? I’m trying to figure out whether it’s something we could get started in our world.”

Willow Orange tilted her head to the side and looked at Willow over her glasses. “Well, the project I’m working on started back when I was in junior high. I got recruited to help out when I was in high school.”

“So more like a ten-year kind of project instead of something we could just pick up in a few months?”

“Pretty much. I can give you some notes, if you could find some virologists in your dimension, that might help them.”

“Thanks." Since there wasn't anything technical to ask, she decided to indulge her curiosity. “Is there a Riley Finn in your world?”

Willow-Orange laughed. “Yes, he’s part of the Army’s biological weapons division. We’re friends, but I can’t imagine being married to him--I prefer girls.”

“Yeah, me too,” Willow felt an odd sense of relief.

“My girlfriend’s a virologist, too.” Willow-Orange got a dreamy look on her face, like she was still in the honeymoon stage of the relationship. “Winifred Burkle. Do you know her in your world?”

“No, I don’t. But, hey, it’s a big world. She’s probably out there somewhere. Maybe she’s even one of the virologists I can hand your work off to.”

They switched partners again.

"So your main thing is magic, too?" Willow-Blue asked.

"Yeah, that's me. Spell-o-palooza Girl."

Willow-Blue smiled. "Finally, a version of me who will understand the ins and the outs of the spellwork. I mean, completing a dual transmogrification spell is as complicated as the science they do, but I don't think they get that."

At last, a Willow who spoke her language! "I’m really curious about how your reality-altering spell works."

"It's kinda complicated. There was a Hellgod trying to take over the world. One of her victims survived and regained her sanity. But she remembered that rival gods from the other dimension gave her the reality-altering spell in a dream. Part of the spell is in her head and she can't explain it. The gods told her we'll need her to help us perform the spell."

It was kinda nice to know that Willow-Blue hadn’t figured out to do reality-altering spells on her own. Maybe she wasn’t that far behind Willow-Blue in the magic department after all.

Then Willow wondered how close Willow-Blue’s world was to her own. "Is that--Tara Maclay?" Maybe this was her dimension's solution, too, and all they needed to do was wait for the gods to contact Tara.

"Yes.” Willow-Blue answered. “Is there a Tara in your world, too?"

"Yeah, she's my girl." Willow didn't want to get into the whole confusing broken-up-but-trying-to-get-back-together mess with some version of herself that she'd just met.

"Oh,” Willow-Blue said. With a wistful smile, she added, “I dated her for a while, but she broke up with me."

Now Willow felt like a jerk, but there was no way to walk that one back. "Oh, I'm sorry." She cast about for a subject change: "It's good to talk to a me who sounds like me, you know? I mean, the other me’s seem nice enough, but all of the robotic army and virus stuff and being married to a guy--"

Willow-Blue looked a bit sheepish. "I'm, um, involved with a guy now."

 _Oh, good one, Willow. You can't even talk to **yourself** without putting your foot in your mouth._ She knew she should stop digging, but couldn't help but blurt out, "Was it weird? Going back to Boystown?"

Willow-Blue laughed. "Yeah, I was kind of freaked at first. I mean, I thought I was gay because it was mostly women I was attracted to. And it was hard because I’d dated men in the past, and I didn’t know if that mattered, or if it was who I was attracted to on a daily basis. I finally decided that I could be bi without being attracted equally to men and women, as long as there were _some_ men that I was attracted to."

“Was anybody freaked by it?” Willow thought about Buffy’s reaction to Willow coming out. Explaining that her sexual orientation had changed, again, seemed like a recipe for a lot of uncomfortable conversations.

“It was more about who it was.”

Willow had a moment of panic, wondering if it was someone completely off-limits, like Angel, or someone completely gross, like Parker. But then Willow-Blue was in an alternate reality, so maybe Angel wasn’t Buffy’s ex and Parker wasn’t a pig. “Really? How come?”

“It was Giles, and that got everyone wigged, but they’re over it.” Willow-Blue considered that for a moment, and added, “Mostly.”

Wow. That was just . . . wow.

***

The return trip to her home dimension felt considerably slower and harder to direct than the first trip. It was kinda like trying to swim in Jell-O.

She hit the floor of Catherine’s kitchen with a thump. Her head throbbed painfully, and there was something warm and drippy on her face--oh, yuck, her nose was bleeding. Willow pulled herself up from the floor, grabbed a paper towel, and held it to her nose as she tilted her head back. She tried to send a little healing magic to stop the bleeding, but her magic seemed just out of reach, an itch she couldn’t scratch. She tried again, and still nothing.

Catherine touched her shoulder. “You’ve overextended yourself. You’ll need a few days rest before you can do any more magic.”

“But what if Giles needs--”

Catherine grabbed a dish towel, knelt down, and started scrubbing blood off the floor. “Then he can ask Tara, or do the damn spell himself.”

Willow’s legs wobbled. She grabbed onto the kitchen countertop before they stopped working altogether.

Catherine stood up, grabbed Willow’s arm to steady her. “Pushing yourself to the limit like this--it’s risky. I’d hate to see you make the same mistakes I did.” Her voice was much gentler than it had been a minute ago, and that helped her words penetrate the fog of Willow’s mind and sink in.

Compared to being permanently de-powered like Catherine, a few days of being temporarily de-powered didn’t seem quite so bad. Maybe they’d all get lucky and Willow wouldn’t need any magic on those days.


	17. Chapter 17

**Gone**

**Jonathan**

It had been four hours, and Jonathan couldn't stop replaying the fight with the invisibility ray in his mind. Warren had tried to kill Buffy. Buffy, who'd saved Jonathan's life more than once. It felt awful to even think that his friend was capable of murder. But if Willow hadn’t been there, that’s what Warren would have done. There was something seriously wrong with Warren.

Should Jonathan say something? Maybe he was just an eternal wuss, destined to be pushed around by other people, but he didn't think he was brave enough to confront Warren.

He needed to leave now, before Warren figured out something was wrong, and did something terrible. He grabbed his wallet, and said to Andrew, “I’m going to the 7-11 to get some soda.”

He wanted to sound normal, but instead his voice sounded shaky and high-pitched and weird. Luckily, Andrew looked completely absorbed in Grand Theft Auto and didn’t seem to notice.

Jonathan walked a few blocks down the street, and conjured up the keys to a gray SUV parked nearby.

Now he had transportation. Should he go visit his cousins in New Jersey? He was pretty sure he’d never talked about them to Warren, but Warren could probably find them if he put his mind to it.

Too many ifs to deal with. Jonathan started the car. He could always decide on his final destination later. For now, he needed to put as much distance between himself and Sunnydale as possible.

***

**Willow**

Willow couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so defenseless. It was so frustrating to have to rely on science and her wits against a bunch of idiotic geeks from high school, when she could have stopped them with one incantation. She was safe at home now, but she couldn't sleep. She kept wondering if there was something different she could have done to make the interdimensional spell work without overextending herself.

She pulled the covers down and got out of bed. If she was going to be awake, she might as well do something useful. She picked up her copy of _Practical Implementation of Magic_ , hoping that this book would finally explain exactly how she could change her magic back to the way it was.

But this was just the same old stuff the last five books had said. That magic left its marks, and those marks could not be undone. Or like Giles said, that it had opened a door that she couldn’t close. Doubts were starting to creep in on the whole getting-back-together-with-Tara plan.

She scanned through her Amazon recommendations. Nothing new on magic, but there was a suggestion for _Bisexual Women in the 21st Century_. Which was not really surprising, given some of the books Willow had bought since meeting Tara.

Willow-Blue’s words came to mind: _But I finally decided that I could be bi without being attracted equally to men and women, as long as there were **some** men that I was attracted to._

So yeah, bisexuality was a thing that existed. And a Willow from a different dimension was bisexual. But what did that mean for her?

***

**Tara**

Buffy was waiting outside Tara's dorm room. That was a surprise. She'd thought she'd lost all of the other Scoobies in the "divorce" from Willow, but maybe not.

Buffy said, "I need your help. I'd ask Willow, but she's all magicked out for now."

Buffy only came to visit because she needed something. And because Willow wasn't available. But was that really a fair reaction? Buffy probably didn't mean it to sound like Tara was just the backup witch to Willow.

Tara swallowed her hurt feelings, and the implication of Buffy's words finally sank in. The spells that would tax Willow's power were immense and unpredictable. She didn't want to be anywhere near those kinds of spells.

Buffy was staring at her. She'd left Buffy's question hanging for far too long.

Tara said, "I'm sorry, I was just a million miles away for a second. I can help. What do you need?"

Buffy said, "I need you to do a locator spell to find some nerds."

After a flurry of preparation, Tara checked that her energies were balanced, and closed her eyes, chanting the invocation.

Tiny bits of magic swarmed around her like insects, blocking her vision. Tara dropped the book and covered her eyes.

Buffy asked, "What's wrong?"

Tara was still trying to figure that out herself. "It feels like there's some magical interference. It's making it hard for my magic to work. Like, I can see you, but not your aura."

Buffy frowned. "Do you think it's hurting anyone?"

Tara concentrated on the offending magic particles themselves. "No, it's just annoying. I think maybe they're magic from somewhere else, something that doesn't belong here. We'll have to do research and figure it out."

Buffy looked like there was something she wanted to say, but instead she just nodded, and said, "Ok, thanks for trying."

***

**Ethan**

There were two kids waiting outside Ethan's hotel room door. As he drew closer, he recognized them. They were the boys who had been trying to harass the Slayer a few weeks ago.

"I'm Warren. He's Andrew. We're looking for a sorcerer to help us, and we heard you were the real deal."

"And what exactly do you do?"

Warren and Andrew each stared at the other, stammering a bit. Apparently these two were so enamored of themselves that they hadn't expected any questions. Finally Andrew said, "He builds robots. I summon demons. It's wicked cool."

"We have plans," Warren said. "We’re robbing an armored car. And taking down The Slayer."

Well, that meshed rather nicely with Ethan’s agenda. He hadn’t harassed Rupert or his Slayer in ages. Magic danced under his skin at the thought. The prospect of cash certainly sweetened the deal. Even chaos sorcerers needed to eat.

Andrew said, "I think she may be looking for us. Can you do a cloaking device for us and our house?"

Warren punched him on the arm. "That's Star Trek!"

"Oh, so, what, an Invisibility Cloak?"

Ethan shrugged. "I'll see what I can do."

He could tell already that he going to have to ignore a lot of idiocy with these two.

***

**Giles**

He'd barely returned from handling Evans when Buffy cornered him to tell him everything that had happened since he'd been gone.

"--so then Willow tracked them down on foot, and then Warren tried to kill me with his invisibility ray, and then we got distracted by a security guy and they got away. Tara tried to do a locator spell, but there was too much magical interference."

Giles frowned. "Magical interference?” Had Ethan been up to something while Giles was away?

Willow looked nervous. “I brought some notes back from the other dimension I visited, and they kinda brought a teensy bit of residual magic with them. So I copied the notes by hand, and then sent them back to the other dimension. I can try again tomorrow.”

He said, in as gentle a tone as he could manage, “I think it would be wise for you to rest a bit. Tara and I can give the locator spell another try.”

***

The invoice for the frog eyes was barely legible. Giles slid his glasses up and down, trying to find the right distance from his eyes to make out the writing. He was still fumbling with them when Tara arrived.

“Hi. Buffy said you wanted me to try the locator spell again?”

“Yes. Would you like me to assist?”

Tara looked a bit dubious. But she placed a book of maps on the counter and took his hands in hers.

He could feel the energy transferring to the maps, and let go of Tara's hand.

Tara flipped through the atlas. "It looks like they're in New York City," Then she frowned. "But that's as specific as it gets. It looks like they're everywhere in New York City."

He took the atlas from Tara and confirmed it. "So we've narrowed it down to a city of eight million people."

Tara said, "I'm sorry. Do you think something went wrong with the spell?"

"No, I think it went as well as it could have. Someone in New York must be helping them with the magic." Right. Just track down every witch, sorcerer, and demon in New York--that would be only slightly less daunting a task.

Tara straightened up, rested her hands on the counter. "There's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

She bit her lip. “It's Willow. You’re pushing her too hard with the magic. You’re going to break her if you keep asking so much of her.”

Oh, _that_. “I can assure you, we won’t be repeating the trans-dimensional spells any time soon.”

“But what about the next big spell you ask her to do?” Tara asked. “She can’t seem to say no to you. About anything.”

Giles heard a hint of bitterness in Tara’s voice, which baffled him. Willow had made it obvious that she wanted to reconcile with Tara. All Tara had to do was say the word, and they’d be back together.

“Believe me, I won’t let any harm to come to Willow. Anything else you’d like to talk about?”

She shook her head. “That’s all. Please be careful with her. She's more fragile than you think.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Dead Things**

**Willow**

"Bye, Dawnie, Have a good day at school!" Willow turned to see Buffy right behind her.

"Will, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Willow closed the door. "Uh, sure."

Buffy said, "I think there's something wrong with me. I need you to check to see if the spell that Giles used brought me back wrong."

Willow's heart started to pound. Buffy had seemed quiet and distant for a while. What if there _was_ something wrong, something that could be fixed easily?

They settled in on the couch. Willow took a deep breath and studied Buffy's aura. She still wasn't as good as Tara was, but there wasn't anything complicated to figure out. It was the same Buffy-essence that had always been there, as far as Willow could tell.

But maybe she needed to ask questions first. “Something wrong” was a kinda vague thing to look for. “Why do you think that?”

Buffy said, “Spike’s chip doesn’t work on me anymore.”

“Wait, how did you figure that out?”

Buffy stared at the couch cushions and said, "We were patrolling one night and things got a little out of hand."

"So you were like sparring or something?"

Buffy nodded.

Willow thought about the chip. “Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s just the chip malfunctioning. I mean, I had to replace a couple of chips in the Buffybot because they got overheated when she got too close to the furnace a few months ago.”

"Just check, Will. Please." Buffy said, with a note of desperation in her voice.

Willow took out some Angelica powder and sprinkled it over Buffy, then spoke the words of a divination spell. No sign of any evil magic clinging to Buffy.

“Buffy, I don't think there’s anything wrong with you.”

“There has to be,” Buffy said.

Willow recognized Buffy’s stubborn, not-going-to-listen-to-anyone tone of voice. But Willow could be stubborn, too. “I don’t see anything. Some of your skin cells on the surface are a little dried out, but they could get that way if you spent too much time in a tanning booth.”

Buffy started to cry. “There has to be something wrong with me. Why else would I be sleeping with Spike?”

Whoa. She wished for the millionth time that she had Oz's unflappable demeanor. She really wanted to appear worldly and sophisticated about these kinds of things, and instead she probably had shock written all over her face.

She tried to figure out what the problem was. “Are you in love with Spike?”

Buffy sniffled, then buried her face in her hands. “No.”

That really didn’t seem like Buffy. But Buffy usually had a good reason for the things she did. Willow tried her most supportive tone of voice. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with having sex just for fun. You’re a grown woman with needs. You shouldn’t be ashamed of--”

“I should be if I’m using him,” Buffy said.

It tore Willow up to see Buffy feeling so guilty over that. Willow’s own sins pressed down on her. Everything else she had said had just bounced off Buffy’s guilt and shame. Maybe Buffy needed to realize that she was being too hard on herself.

She put her hands on Buffy’s shoulders. “You’ve been through a lot, and I think if this is the worst thing you’ve done, you’re actually doing ok. Especially compared to everyone else. Right after Tara broke up with me, I slept with a guy! I used him to feel better about myself. And the really sad thing is that I can’t stop thinking about it and the only reason it hasn’t happened again is that he doesn’t want it.”

Buffy looked baffled by all of this. Maybe Willow needed to connect the dots for her. “You lost your mom, and almost lost your sister, and you died and went to Hell. And then you did one thing you’re not proud of. What’s my excuse? That Tara broke up with me?”

Buffy looked up at Willow and asked, “Who was the guy?”

Oh, crap. Buffy would have to pick this moment to get all engaged and interested in what Willow had to say. If Willow told the truth, it might mess up Buffy’s relationship with Giles. And Buffy needed Giles.

“No one you know. Just some random guy from college.” She hoped that would satisfy Buffy’s curiosity.

Buffy gave her a searching look. “There must have been something interesting or special about him, Will. I don’t see you just jumping and using some random guy.”

Willow shrugged. “I guess I have a dark side you haven’t seen before.”

“At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth again, does this mean that you’re bi? I mean, Xander and Oz, and now Random Guy. That’s a lot of kissage of guys for someone who’s, you know--”

Wow, Buffy wasn’t freaked out; Willow felt bad for assuming that she would. Buffy had grown and changed a lot since that awkward coming out discussion a couple years ago.  It felt kind of liberating--she could finally talk to someone about all of this. “I’m still trying to figure that out. Sometimes I think I’m a lesbian who’s occasionally attracted to men. Sometimes I think I need a different word, like maybe ‘queer’, because ‘bi’ makes it seem like the attraction’s 50/50, and it’s not for me. There are a lot more girls than guys who catch my eye.”

“Oh,” was all Buffy said. But that was alright, because this latest sexual identity stuff was new to Buffy; Willow didn’t expect her to have any profound thoughts about it right away. It was enough just to have Buffy listen. Willow hadn't realized how badly she’d needed that until now.

Buffy tilted her head, looked at Willow with curiosity. “Are you sure I don’t know Random Guy? I met a lot of people at school.”

“I’m sure. So what do think you’re going to do about Spike?”

Willow immediately regretted changing the subject when she saw the haunted look on Buffy’s face.

“I have to end it, Will. It’s not good for either of us.”

***

**Ethan**

Ethan was no stranger to foul-smelling magic ingredients, but the Hombja’moleev demon musk gland was something else entirely. He tried breathing only through his mouth, but the stench still crawled down to his stomach.

Ethan sprinkled goldenrod powder over the gland, and chanted the invocation about revealing desires and all that claptrap.

The Cerebral Dampener pulsed with light. Ethan’s heart pounded with the flow of the magic. But a moment later, the Dampener collapsed on itself, twisting into a misshapen mess.

Warren turned on Ethan, “What the fuck did you do to my Dampener?”

Ethan stared him down. “It wasn’t me, it was the musk gland.”

“Hey!” Andrew yelped. “I followed the directions exactly. This isn’t my fault!”

Ethan said, “I didn’t say that. It’s an unstable ingredient. It varies based on what the demon had for lunch, or when it last saw an attractive mate.” It also interacted very poorly with chaos magic, but these two geniuses didn’t need to know that. He’d argued with them until he was blue in the face about the pointlessness of the Dampener, to no avail. A little push seemed in order.

Warren said, “I spent months on that. It could take a couple more to build a new one.”

Ethan said, “Forget about it. Concentrate on the armored car heist. Once you’re rolling in cash, you’ll have no problem attracting girls.”

***

**Giles**

The shop's door jangled, and Buffy and Willow walked in together.

He wondered if he should have invited them to his flat and made tea first. But Willow might feel uncomfortable with that, even with Buffy there.

They sat down at the table, and Willow said, "What's going on, Giles? Something apocalypse-y?"

"There's no immediate danger. I've been thinking about the best way that we can fight The First. I think I might be most useful outside of Sunnydale."

"What? How can you just leave, after you--" Buffy looked at Willow, as if suddenly remembering that she was in the room too. "--after you brought me back from Hell," she finished.

The world stood still for a moment. His chest tightened, and he fought back tears by sheer force of will. Buffy was lying about being in Hell. And the only reason for her to lie about it was to spare his feelings, because she'd been happier--wherever she _had_ been. He couldn't try to fool himself any more. All of her struggles now were his fault.

After what seemed like an interminable pause, he said, "I'm going to try to rally support from Council members to reinstate Faith, and to help with the fight against The First."

"I have a question," Willow said. "Why?"

"Yeah, Giles, they haven't been super help-y to us before. And The First has been quiet. Haven’t had a Slayer dream or anything about them since I came back.”

He tried to think of the right words to make them understand the value of an institution that dated back thousands of years. It was difficult when their only contact with The Council had been highly antagonistic.

"The Council has its problems, but they also have a lot of resources and information that could be very useful to us."

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "So send Travers over here, I'll threaten to kick his ass unless he hands them over.

What could he say? _Your status with the Council is diminished, because you’re obviously struggling now, and it’s all my fault._

Instead he said, "I think this message would be better heard coming from one of the Council’s own. We need them to be completely on board with us, and persuasion is a better strategy than coercion."

"But what about here?” Willow asked, with a plaintive note in her voice. “We need you here."

“I have faith that the two of you can handle anything the Hellmouth dishes out while I’m gone,” he said. “And I’ll be a phone call away if you need any advice.”

"But I have this weird Slayer-y feeling that Jonathan and Warren and um, Tucker's brother are up to something." Desperation shone in Buffy’s eyes.

He had to be strong to keep the two of them from talking him out of this. "As far as we know, they're in New York. And don't you think they should be a lower priority than a potential apocalypse? Perhaps the local authorities can handle them instead."

"Just--please don't leave, Giles." Willow was silent, but the look in her eyes echoed Buffy's plea.

He had to look away from them; if he didn't, he'd start to listen to the little voice in his head that said he was a coward. That he'd thrown both girls' lives in disarray, and was running away from the consequences.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But leaving is the right thing to do right now."


	19. Chapter 19

**Hells Bells**

**Xander**

Xander was on his way to tell Anya that he couldn't marry her, when Willow and Buffy cornered him just outside the Lodge.

Willow grabbed his arm, pulling him around to look at her. "Xander, that was a demon. He made up all that stuff about your future with Anya."

Xander sighed. "It doesn't matter if it was real. What matters is that it _felt_ real. It felt like something that could happen if I married her."

"But marriage doesn't _make_ you be awful to your wife. You've been living with Anya for a couple years, and you've been good to her. Why does the wedding change anything?"

He loved Willow, but sometimes he wished she hadn't been captain of the debate club. "I don't know. I haven't always been a great boyfriend to her. And why are you so gung-ho about this? You never liked Anya."

Buffy suddenly looked like she'd figured out a puzzle. "Xander, is this maybe about unresolved feelings for someone else?"

"What? No. There isn't anyone else. This is about my badness, and no one else's."

Buffy looked confused. "Then who's the guy that Willow slept with?"

What. The. Hell. He knew he'd been preoccupied with the wedding, but how did he miss that? "You slept with a guy? I thought you were trying to get back together with Tara. And you're gay! That means absolutely not sleeping with guys."

Willow sputtered, "It was one guy, not lots of--I don't--this isn't--stop trying to change the subject, Xander! I'm not the one who's getting married today."

Xander tugged on his bow tie, dreading what he had to do next. Calling off the wedding would be the worst thing he’d ever done. It would also be the only right thing to do for Anya's sake. “I can’t get married. I just can’t. I'm going to tell Anya, and then I'm getting out of Sunnydale for a while. I need some time to think.”

Buffy said, "If you're going to leave her, at least have the decency to stand up in front of the guests and tell them what's going on. Don't make Anya have to do that after you break her heart."

***

**Anya**

After Xander made his announcement, Anya slipped back to the dressing room and collapsed in a chair. She had a feeling that Hallie and D'Hoffryn would come by to say, "I told you so," about Xander and she couldn't bear to hear that at the moment.

Just half an hour ago, she'd been delighted with her beautiful dress, and how beautiful her bridesmaids looked in their dresses. She had been sure then that Xander had loved her and that this would be a perfect day. Now she wondered if she meant anything to him, or if she ever had. Did Xander lie when he told her he loved her? He'd lied when he'd told her he wanted to get married. If a man was willing to lie about one thing, it meant he was probably lying about other things. A thousand years of experience had taught her that.

Willow, Tara, Buffy, and Dawn surrounded her, repeating the same thing four different ways: they felt bad for her, and they were mad at Xander, but they were sure he felt bad too. Anya buried her face in her hands.

Then someone said, "Well, I see nothing's changed around here. You all still suck at being supportive. She doesn't need to hear how Xander feels about the whole thing. She needs to hear the truth. He was a coward to wait until the last minute to bring this up."

It was Cordelia. Anya had forgotten that she was here. She looked up at Cordelia, giving her a small, grateful smile.

The other girls gaped at Cordelia.

Cordelia came closer, hunched down so that she was at eye-level with Anya. "You know what might help? Take the money you were going to spend on the honeymoon and have a fun vacation for yourself."

Anya thought that sounded interesting, but, "I don't want to go on a vacation all by myself."

Cordelia said, "Why don't you come up to LA for a week or two? You can stay with me at Angel's. It's as safe as any place here, and you can save your money for shopping and clubs. Believe me, there is life after Xander Harris, and it's wonderful."

Willow said, "She's really good at helping people get over traumatic breakups."

Tara flinched and looked away from Willow.

Anya knew it sounded crazy. Spend a vacation with her ex-fiance's ex-girlfriend? Who was also Anya's last vengeance wish target? She could tell from the looks she was getting that everyone except Cordelia and Willow thought it was a crazy idea.

But what had she gotten from following human codes of behavior, from trying to fit in? Nothing but heartbreak.

Taking this trip sounded a lot better than moping around Sunnydale, where everyone was more Xander's friend than Anya's. Cordelia knew Xander, but wouldn't mince words about him.

"Ok," Anya said. "I just need a few minutes to change out of this dress."

***

**Normal Again**

**Willow**

Willow watched Buffy struggle against the magic barrier that kept her close to her bed. She hoped Spike and Xander would hurry up already with the demon. Dawn could be coming home from school at any minute. And Willow was feeling a little strange, like the walls of Buffy’s bedroom were pressing in on her, and she could suffocate at any minute.

She heard the door open downstairs, and yelled, "I've got her up here!"

"Willow?" Tara came up the stairs, and looked askance at Willow and Buffy.

Of course this must all look very strange to Tara. “She got stung by a demon, and she's wigging, big time. She thinks she's in an insane asylum and none of us are real. She tried to attack me in the kitchen. I'm keeping her behind the barrier so she can't hurt anybody."

Tara said, "Poor Buffy! And you look exhausted. Let me help."

Tara slipped her hand in Willow's, adding her magic to the barrier spell. Willow sat down on the floor, leaning back against the bedroom wall. She hadn't realized just how taxing the spell had been until Tara shouldered some of the burden. "Thanks," she said.

Tara said, "It's nothing."

Sometimes Tara's self-deprecation could be maddening. "It's not nothing."

It was weird how the little things she used to find so cute and endearing about Tara could be irritations now.

Just then, Spike and Xander arrived with the demon. Willow jumped up and grabbed the antidote recipe.

***

**Tara**

It had been four hours since Tara had coaxed Buffy into drinking the antidote, and Buffy was still talking to people who weren’t there, and ignoring people right in front of her. Maybe they should try some non-magical method of confining Buffy. But she hated the idea of chaining Buffy up like the demon who did this to her.

Willow crossed the room and peered at Buffy through the barrier. “It’s not working. I’m going to try telepathy to get through to her.”

“How long did the book say it would take?” Willow might get sucked into Buffy’s delusions. No sense in making things worse.

Willow bit her lower lip. “Three hours. We can’t leave her like this forever!”

Tara sighed and twisted the fringe of the bedspread between her fingers. “She’s gotten through worse on her own. Let's give her a little more time and trust her to find her own way back this time.”

To her surprise, Willow didn’t argue. She just paced and fidgeted and watched Buffy like a hawk.

About fifteen minutes later, Buffy stood up, turned towards one of the walls and said, “Thank you,” and then, “Goodbye.” Something about the tone of Buffy’s voice made Tara blink back tears.

Buffy’s eyes met Tara’s, and focused on her. “Where’s Dawn?”

“In her room. I’ll go get her,” Willow said.

Relief washed over Tara. Buffy had come through ok, and Willow didn't have to do anything super-scary.

Tara hugged Buffy. “I’m glad you got a chance to say goodbye.”

***

**Giles**

Giles fumbled with the door lock for his hotel room. He could hear the phone inside ringing, the echoes loud and strident in the empty hallway.

He opened the door and picked up the phone before it woke up everyone in the bloody hotel.

"Giles? Your cellphone has been sending me straight to voicemail all night. Why haven’t you answered it?” It was Willow, and his heart started to pound; the panic in her voice was contagious. What had happened while he was gone?

"I'm sorry, I turned my phone off during my flight this afternoon and forgot to turn it back on. What's happened?"

Willow said, "It's Buffy. She was stung by a demon that made her hallucinate-y and homicidal."

"Good Lord! Is everyone alright?" If someone had been hurt, and he'd missed a chance to help due to a careless mistake, he'd never forgive himself.

"Everyone's ok. We put up a magic barrier to keep her from hurting anyone, and then I made an antidote, and she seems back to normal.” After a moment, she added, “But maybe you should come back home and make sure."

Ah, yes. Willow and her belief that he was indispensable. It was endearing, even if obviously wrong in this case. He sat down at the desk, adjusted the phone under his ear. "It sounds like you handled it well. I don't think I would have done anything you didn't do."

She was quiet for so long that he thought they might have gotten disconnected, and then she said, "Maybe it's not about anything specific that you would do. Maybe it's about you making things better just by being here."

Her voice was so sweet and earnest, he couldn't help but smile. Then she said, "I guess what I should have said was 'I miss you', and that could have waited until tomorrow morning."

"Not at all." He opened his mouth to tell her that he appreciated the update on Buffy's condition. Instead, what came out was "I miss you, too."

Oh, dear. "A-All of you. I miss all of you." That sounded unconvincing to his ears, so he added, "How is everyone else?"

He listened as Willow told him that Xander had called off the wedding, that he and Anya had both left town temporarily, that Dawn had been shoplifting and Buffy was helping her make amends. He made sympathetic or distressed noises at the appropriate moments, not wanting to interrupt the flow of her words. He let the cadences of Willow’s voice wash over him. It was soothing, even when she was discussing everyone’s chaotic personal lives. It sounded like home. After weeks of travel and endless discussions with other Watchers, hearing about Sunnydale--even with its attendant crises--was a breath of fresh air.

All too soon, she said, "It's late and I don't want to keep you up. It was nice to talk to you."

It was only after they'd said their goodbyes, after he'd hung up the phone, after he’d gone to bed, that Giles realized that Willow had talked for a good half hour without mentioning Tara once. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.


	20. Chapter 20

**Spike**

Ever since Buffy broke up with him, Spike hadn't been able to think of anything else. Every time it seemed like he was getting close to having her, someone or something jerked her away. He didn't know how much more he could take. It was past time to take action. He headed to the Magic Box. She was standing at the counter, just as he'd hoped.

He said, "I’m calling in that favor. I want you to do a spell for me."

Willow blinked, gave him a fake smile to try to hide her obvious nervousness. "Um--what kind of spell?"

"I want you to make me fall out of love with Buffy."

She slowly edged away from the counter, away from him. "I -- I don't think I can--"

"Don't play dumb. You were gonna do one on yourself when you couldn't keep your hands off the idiot."

She flinched. Maybe she was thinking about her own mistakes, or how he'd threatened to shove a broken bottle in her face the last time he'd asked her to do a spell. Possibly both.

"I just, I'm not sure magic could take this away completely. I mean, it's kinda like liposuction."

"What the bloody hell are you going on about?" It just figured. She was the one person who could solve his problem, and she was nearly as daft as Dru.

She picked up one of the crystals on the counter and adjusted it so it lined up with the others. "I mean, you can suck the fat away, but if someone's body is programmed to deposit fat somewhere, eventually it will come back. If there's something about you that's designed to love Buffy, maybe it will come back on its own, even if I did the spell."

He choked back a laugh. This was no time to get sidetracked by her odd thought processes. "You ever think that it might have been your magic that made me love Buffy in the first place?"

She looked up at him. "But I did the counter-spell--" There was a slight twitch under her left eye.

He leaned forward, fists resting on the counter. "And maybe you buggered up the counter-spell, too. You weren't particularly _reliable_ at magic back then."

It wasn't entirely the truth. Dru had seen his love for Buffy as far back as Brazil, but Willow didn't need to know about that. Besides, he didn't remember being obsessive about Buffy until after Willow's spell.

The lie had its desired effect: Willow’s indignant expression turned to one of self-doubt. "I, um, I need to think about this, Spike. I can't just do it right away."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh, so when it's a spell _you_ want to do, you can't do it fast enough. But when it helps someone else, all of a sudden, you need to think things through."

She fixed him with a stare that rivaled Darla's for sheer stubbornness. "This is my Resolve Face, Spike. It means I'm gonna have to think about it first."

***

**Willow**

Willow put up the CLOSED sign, double-checked that the doors to the shop were locked, and started walking back to Revello Drive, turning the conversation with Spike over and over in her head. Maybe she _had_ made him love Buffy with her Thy Will Be Done spell. If the effects were still lingering, and Spike wanted them gone, wasn’t she obligated to remove them?

Leaves crunched under her feet as walked through Wilkins Park. Spike's love for Buffy was complicated. The Buffybot had been--well, incredibly gross--but she also helped save the world, and protected Sunnydale when Buffy was dead. Would Spike have protected Dawn from Glory if he hadn't loved Buffy? Would he want to kill Buffy if he wasn't in love with her? All the hypotheticals were making her head hurt.

***

**Buffy**

Buffy glared at the pot of beans on the stove. They'd been simmering for hours, and they smelled like they were cooking, but they stubbornly refused to soften. She wished she'd learned more about cooking from her mom. Her mom just made meal planning and preparation seem effortless; for Buffy it was a baffling struggle.

Just when Buffy was about to chuck the beans out and order a pizza, Willow came in, looking worried.

"Buffy, I had a talk with Spike, not about the sleeping together stuff, but kinda about magic, and kinda about you. I know it's something you probably don't want to talk about, but I think we need to, you know, talk, because sometimes uncomfortable conversations are helpful--"

"Willow, come on, just say it while we're both still young."

"He said he thinks that the Thy Will Be Done spell never wore off for him. He wants me to do an anti-love spell on him."

Buffy didn't know what she'd expected Willow to say. Given their very weird lives, the possibilities were endless. But it definitely wasn't _that_.

"Is that possible? Could you do it?" she asked.

"Well, I talked to Catherine about it. We're not sure if it would work in the long term, or whether it would be something that I'd have to, like, renew over time? 'Cause love spells are tricky that way."

Buffy thought about the desperate look in Spike's eyes. The way he kept coming back to her, even though she didn't love him, even though she kept using him. "I think you should do the spell," she said. Willow didn't answer. Buffy sighed. "Ok, tell me why you have But Face"

Willow asked, "If I do it, is he gonna try to kill you again? You won't have the chip to protect you."

Buffy shrugged. "I can handle him." If it came to that, staking Spike would probably be kinder to him than what she'd been doing to him this year.

***

**Spike**

He caught Willow's scent on the air. A peculiar feeling, one he hadn't felt since he was human, fluttered in his chest. Nervousness. That was it. Once, he'd been the slayer of Slayers. Now, he was so broken that he was at the mercy of whatever selfish or do-gooder impulse Willow had that day.

Finally, she stepped in to his crypt, carrying a raven feather and some foul-smelling herbs. She was going to set him free.

She looked him in the eye, and said, "Before I do the spell, I wanna make one thing clear. If you try to hurt Buffy after the spell, I. Will. End. You." For such a little bit, she could project a surprising amount of menace.

"Got it," he said.

He watched as she mixed the ingredients, listened to the words of invocation. And then, he felt tiny sparks flare up under his skin, and then burn out.

When all the sparks died down, Willow said, "Try thinking about Buffy."

He thought of her, and that desperate, possessive love for her--was gone, just like that.

"It's gone. You got it right for once."

"Great. Just remember what I said before the spell."

"Right," he said.

She left, and he thought about ways he could get around her, get a shot at Buffy without Willow finding out. But when he thought of killing Buffy, he didn't have the same uncomplicated glee at the prospect that he used to. There was Dawn, who'd taken her sister's death so hard. What would she do if she lost Buffy again?

Somewhere down the line, he'd gone soft. It would be easy to blame the sodding chip, but there was something about Dawn, something he couldn't ensorcel away.

He wasn't a man, but he wasn't completely a monster any more, either. He needed to get out of Sunnydale, figure it out before any of them corrupted him any further.


	21. Chapter 21

**Seeing Red**

**Buffy**

Buffy picked up the telephone, hoping it wasn’t yet another clueless telemarketer who wanted to talk to Joyce Summers. “Hello, who’s this?”

“Buffy, it’s Jonathan.”

The rush of fear when she’d heard that the invisibility ray could kill her returned, for a moment. “What do you want?”

“You have every right to be mad at me. But there's something you should know about Warren." His words prickled at the edge of Buffy's Slayer sense. This could be an important call.

"Ok, spit it out," Part of her wanted to ask him why he hadn't learned his lessons from the augmentation spell. At least Warren and Andrew were novices at fooling around with supernatural forces. Jonathan should have known better. But she bit her tongue. There could be time for that later.

She started with the easiest part of it. "Where's Warren right now? Our locator spells have him in New York."

"I think he's still in Sunnydale, but I don't know where. He's got a lot of explosives. If you try to break into his house, he might set them off."

Stupid humans with machinery. Things were so much easier with demons. Buffy suddenly wondered if Giles was right, and this really was something for the kind of people armed with body armor and guns, not stakes and holy water. But she had a gut feeling that there was something magick-y and maybe even demonic going on with Warren as well, and that meant that the police probably weren't equipped to hunt him down.

Since she didn't want to go all explode-y, it was probably best to try to catch Warren somewhere else.

She said, "Tell me everything you know about this armored car plan."

***

**Willow**

At the Magic Box, Willow flipped through her spellbook, trying find the best spell to disable Warren's orbs quickly. They couldn't risk Warren running back to his armored bunker.

Magic burrowed under her skin, and she suddenly felt as if the ground had lurched under her feet. Oh, Goddess, was the Hellmouth opening up already? Were they too late to stop The First Evil?

Buffy ducked beneath a table, and pulled Willow down with her. "Will, do you have any clue what that is?"

Willow closed her eyes and followed the energy. "There's some big-time magic coming from somewhere a little south of UC Sunnydale. I don't think it's a natural earthquake,"

The quake continued, with no sign of letting up. Willow glanced at the clock. Warren would be at the armored car in twenty minutes.

Buffy said, "Go. I'll handle Warren on my own."

Willow could borrow a car, but that might take time, and she didn't really have it. Not when Buffy might need some backup with Warren.

She'd experimented with levitation spells, but had never really flown great distances before. But there was no reason not to try it now. She thought about air molecules lifting her up, propelling her through the air. Her feet left the ground, and she floated towards UC Sunnydale, the wind whipping through her hair. It was exhilarating, like the greatest amusement park ride in the world.

When Willow reached the nexus of the magic, she drifted down, hitting the ground with a thump that shot pain through her ankles and knees. So much for a dramatic entrance. Clearly she needed to work on a more coordinated dismount.

Ethan was at the center, his hands directing the flow of energy. There was something strangely beautiful about the way his magic flowed.

But aesthetic appreciation could wait.

She called out, " _Vincire_ \--", and watched magic encircle him.

He said something too low for her to hear, and in an instant she felt her magic twisting back to her, like an electric shock, making every muscle in her body twitch. She fell to the ground, panting, and watched in disbelief as he stopped all of the chaos magic that was making the ground shake.

"You're leaving? What was all of that earthquaky stuff for?" It was a stupid, stupid, question. She couldn’t magic her way out of a paper bag at this point; there was no reason to goad him into coming back. Her stupid curiosity kept getting the better of her.

Ethan smirked at her, “I created a diversion. You fell for it.”

He fired up a jetpack, and it felt like his smug grin stuck around just a bit longer than the rest of him.

***

**Xander**

It was getting pretty old, watching his two best friends being put through the wringer over and over again.

First Buffy had come back from the armored car heist looking beaten-up. No matter how often he’d seen it, no matter how much he knew that the cuts and bruises would heal fast, it still made him cringe a little inside. Then there was the news that Andrew had been captured but Warren had escaped with a jetpack. (Xander had to fight a tiny bit of admiration for the coolness of that exit.).

Then Willow limped home, looking like she could collapse at any second. Xander wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her upstairs to her room, wincing as little sparks of magic burned his arm. He could only imagine how they felt to Willow.

Once she was safely in bed, Xander went back down to the yard to talk to Buffy. He tried to think of some way to make with the funny to take her mind off things. Usually, he could come up with a funny Anya story, but now, thinking of Anya just made him feel guilty and defensive and furious all at once. It probably didn’t matter. Buffy hadn’t really laughed at much of anything lately.

He settled on, “How’s Dawn?”

Buffy frowned. “Ok, I think. She hasn’t said anything about all of the crazy--”

Just then Xander had a weird instinctive feeling that something was wrong. He looked up, just in time to see Warren coming up to the house with a gun.

Everything seemed to happen all at once. Warren yelled something, and then shot Buffy in the chest. He fired off a couple more shots, then ran off.

Xander knelt down next to Buffy. Oh, god. Buffy couldn’t die again. He grabbed his phone and dialed 911.

***

**Willow**

Willow awoke, her head still throbbing. Something outside popped like a firecracker, so she got up to look out the window. There was another pop, and something burned through her arm. She looked down and saw blood dripping down her arm. The shock of it sent her falling backwards. Her head hit something hard, and the world went dark for a while.

When she woke up again, she was vaguely aware of a commotion outside. Xander was yelling something about Buffy being shot. There were sirens and some other people talking. She tried calling out, but her voice didn't seem to be working.

Sometime after the noise died down, she was able to open her eyes. There was blood everywhere. She tried to sit up, but her head was spinning and she felt like she was drifting away. The analytical part of her diagnosed: blood loss. She could be dying, and now no one was here to help her. She reached out with her mind, crossing continents, crossing oceans: _Giles, help!_


	22. Chapter 22

**Giles**

Every week Giles travelled to a different city to have the same argument about Faith with a different group of Watchers. This week, the arguments were in Perth. The arguments had become unspeakably tedious to Giles by now.

"But my point is, Faith will never get a chance to prove that she's reformed unless we allow her to make her own decisions."

Nguyen said, "I understand, but I've read your reports. You trusted her, and she abused that trust--"

_Giles, help!_

Giles said, "Pardon me. Emergency," and the room faded out as he teleported to Willow.

He'd sensed Willow's pain and terror, knew something terrible must have happened, but the sight of her on lying in a pool of blood still shocked him. There was a wound in her arm. It might have opened up an artery; she was in danger of bleeding out. He knelt down beside her and started CPR. In between compressions, he reached out with his magic--there, it was the brachial artery--and began to repair the artery and knit together the torn flesh.

She started breathing again. The next first aid concern was blood loss. Even if he teleported to the hospital, they might not get her a transfusion fast enough. There was a spell that was used to replenish blood in remote areas far from hospitals. It was in a book he'd read in his first year at Watcher Academy--was it in Mandarin?--yes, that was it. He chanted the incantations, praying that he'd remembered the words and intonations correctly. He felt the energy pass between them, sensed the blood cells increasing. Her color had started to return. He cradled her in his arms.

Now there was nothing else to do but hold her and hope that the blood loss hadn't caused brain damage. He pushed away the thought that he might have arrived in time to save her body but not her mind--it was too awful to contemplate.

He was just Rupert now, not the powerful sorcerer or vigilant Watcher, just Rupert, desperately hoping that he hadn't lost her. Hoping that this time he wasn't too late to save the woman he loved.

Her face twitched and she opened her eyes. She mumbled something incoherent.

“Willow, love, it’s alright.” He kept his voice low and gentle. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her after her ordeal.

She looked at him with a slightly confused expression on her face. “What?” she asked faintly.

“You were--hurt. You’re safe now.” A lock of hair had fallen over her face; he brushed it back.

"No, I mean--what was that spell? With the blood?” She gazed up at him, and he realized her expression wasn’t confusion, but curiosity. “That was nifty. Where's it from? Oh, and thank you for saving me--I really should have said that first, huh? Sorry, I just got excited--"

She was alive and still truly Willow. There weren't any words that could express the relief and joy filling his heart. So he tightened his arms around her and kissed her, pouring everything he felt into the kiss.

***

**Willow**

One minute she was talking, the next minute Giles was holding her in one of those oxygen-depriving hugs, and kissing her desperately. After about a second of shock, she started kissing him back. He loosened his grip on her just enough for her to move her arms, so she slid one hand to the back of his head, and ran the other hand down his back. She wanted these feelings to last forever--the safety as his arms held her tight, the shivery thrill as his mouth crushed down on hers--but a nagging thought kept coming back. There were reasons that they shouldn't be making out like crazy right now.

"Giles, we need to stop." He pulled away a little, but he didn’t look happy. To be fair, she'd been encouraging him up to that point and her request was kinda abrupt.

"C'mon, you, me, healing spells? It just leads to badness. And we don't have time. Buffy was shot, too, and I think she got to the hospital and she has Slayer healing, but she still might need your help--"

His face switched back to Watcher mode. "I'll be right there."

But he grasped her face with both hands and kissed her hard one more time before teleporting out. Her whole body trembled, and it wasn’t the near-death-y stuff that caused it. Her lips felt bruised, and part of her loved it, loved having a physical reminder of what she’d just done.

Then she had a sobering thought. She'd thought she was dying, and she'd reached out to Giles, even though he was thousands of miles farther away than anyone here. What was wrong with her?

She sat for a minute, back against the bed, trying to decide what to do next. She heard the door open downstairs, and Dawn called up, "Hey, I'm home."

Oh, goddess, she needed to clean up all of this blood before Dawn saw her and started freaking out. "Dawnie, stay downstairs, please. I'll be down in a minute."

"You sound funny. What's wrong?" And of course Dawn ignored her--was there anyone she actually listened to? Dawn walked into the room, looked at her and screamed.

Willow stood up carefully, her legs still a little shaky. "It's ok, Dawnie. It looks a lot worse than it is. I'm all right now."

Dawn looked relieved for about half a second, and Willow hated to have to shatter that relief. "But Buffy's in the hospital, and we need to make sure she's ok.”

Then there was a mad scramble to find car keys and get to the hospital. About halfway there Willow realized that she was still wearing her bloody clothes, but what could she do about it now? The important thing was finding Buffy and making sure she was ok.

***

**Xander**

Xander was trying to referee the argument between Buffy and the nurse about whether Buffy could leave. The nurse seemed wigged by how quickly Buffy had healed, and since the nurse didn't know Buffy was a Slayer, the nurse’s confusion was understandable. He hoped Buffy wouldn't piss off the nurse so badly she'd keep Buffy here out of spite.

Magic crackled in the air, and Giles appeared out of nowhere. The nurse gasped and ran out of the room. Buffy ran after, still begging her to sign the release paperwork.

Xander was baffled. "Jeez, Giles. Since when is it ok to use magic right in front of civilians?"

"A nurse saw something she couldn't explain. Happens all the time around here."

"But you always told us to be discreet, and now you're just flaunting the magic wherever you go--"

Giles gave him the look that always made Xander feel like the stupidest person on the planet. "If it weren't for my magic, Willow would have bled to death back at the house. You're supposed to be her best friend, but you didn't even check on her. Maybe if you lot weren't so bloody incompetent, I wouldn't need to use magic just to keep things in order around here."

Xander felt like Giles had smacked his head with a two-by-four. "Willow--she was shot too?"

"She's all right now. No thanks to you." He stalked off after Buffy. Xander could only stand there, no doubt looking like a slack-jawed idiot.

***

**Giles**

Giles followed Buffy out to the waiting room. The nurse looked at him, signed Buffy's paperwork and walked away as fast as she could. "Buffy, are you all right?”

‘I’ll be fine, once I get out of here and track down Warren."

Guilt flooded through him. She'd been right about how dangerous Warren was. They were lucky Warren hadn't killed both Buffy and Willow today.

He allowed himself a moment for his thoughts to continue down that path, then shook them off. They needed a plan to deal with Warren now. His self-flagellation could come later.

"We should all meet at the Magic Box. Perhaps Spike can assist after sundown?"

She frowned, and he braced himself for something he wouldn't want to hear.

"Spike--isn't around anymore. He asked Willow to do an anti-love spell on him. Willow asked me if it was ok, and I said yes. She did the spell and he left a few days ago, I don't know where he is now."

Good Lord. "Hang on a second, you did what? Willow did what?" He hoped that he'd somehow misheard or misunderstood.

"It was just--he found out his chip had stopped working on me, and he could hurt me. And I was so messed up that I kind of wanted him to.” She stared down at the floor. “I finally stopped it, but he--he was just obsessed. It was terrible for him. Willow and I talked it over, and we decided that it was the best thing we could do for him."

What on earth was Willow thinking? He thought she’d be responsible and use her magic only to protect Buffy.

"The chip won't protect you anymore? And you decided to get rid of the only other reason he wouldn't kill you? Are you suicidal?"

"I was. I'm not now." She looked him right in the eye, and he looked away. God, it was his fault she'd felt that way.

He tilted his head back, stared at the white ceiling tiles as if they might have some answers for him. There was nothing he could do about the past. All he could do was protect her in the future. There was a spell that might help. But first, he needed more power.

Buffy was still staring at him. "Never mind about the meeting. You look after Dawn and the others. I'll take of care of Warren for you." Before she could argue, he teleported out.

***

**Anya**

Anya stacked up some outdated potions, humming to herself. It was good to be back at work. Going out to clubs and malls with Cordy had been fun, but Anya liked feeling useful. This was the only place where her knowledge of magic and her talent for finance put her in her element.

She nearly jumped out of her skin (in the human, non-literal sense) when Giles teleported in. He looked angry, and she wondered if it was something she'd done, but he didn't even acknowledge her. He just strode over to the loft and started levitating the black arts books.

It looked like he was absorbing energy from them. When he reached the fifth book or so, her curiosity got the best of her. "Why are you doing that?"

He fixed an icy glare on her. "Because I need this. I'm paying you to work, not to ask questions. If you don't have enough work to do here, feel free to go home."

Home was her empty apartment, where there was no one to have sex with, or cuddle, or even just talk to. She turned back to the potions, watching him out of the corner of her eye. It looked like he was absorbing magic way too fast. She kept quiet. He'd never listen to her advice. None of them ever did. Never mind that she was one thousand years older than any of them.

Anya stared in fascination as his hair and eyes turned black. She was trying to be a good human, really, but there were times when she yearned for her old calling. This wasn't vengeance magic, but it was dark enough to send a little shiver through her.

He caught her staring, and said, "Get out. Now." His voice was quiet, but Anya couldn't miss the menace behind it. She bolted out of the store.

Giles could be annoying, with his condescending corrections, and his insistence on holding onto The Magic Box instead of giving it to Anya. But he was also a friend, and she wanted to help him. She’d call Buffy. Maybe his Slayer could find a way to talk Giles out of whatever stupid thing he was doing.


	23. Chapter 23

**Willow**

Willow caught a glimpse of Buffy and Xander in the parking lot and felt tension fall away. Buffy was ok.

Buffy ran up and hugged Dawn. Then she stared at Willow's shirt. "God, Will, he got you, too?”

"Oh, I kinda got shot in the arm--."

Xander moved in to examine her shirt. "So it's true? Giles said you almost died--"

Willow shot him the "Don't Upset Dawn" look.

Willow carried on, trying to sound chipper, "--but I called Giles for help and he did a really amazing healing spell, so I'm fine now. Where's Giles?"

Buffy said, "He said he was going to take care of Warren. The last time I saw him so angry was after--Ms. Calendar."

Willow felt a cold chill go through her. Warren hadn't killed anyone, but that wasn't for lack of trying. What would Giles do to Warren?

As they made their way out of the hospital, Buffy checked her phone's voicemail, and cursed under her breath. “Anya says that he just kicked her out of the Magic Box. He’s loading up on magic from the black arts books.”

***

**Giles**

Giles absorbed the magic from another book. This one had layers of flavors like an aged scotch. He knew it wasn't wise to absorb so much magic, especially dark magic, this quickly. But wisdom was overrated. Sometimes knowledge wasn't nearly as important as doing what needed to be done. He needed power, a lot of it, to deal with Warren and protect Buffy, Faith, and the world.

The book yielded the rest of its magic, and Giles placed it back on the shelf.

The first thing he needed to do was find Warren.

He started to get out a map, and then realized that he didn't need a map or ingredients or an incantation anymore. He could find Warren with no more than a thought.

And it seemed Ethan had made it even easier to find Warren. Giles decided he could deal with Ethan later.

Warren was in the woods; Giles hauled him into the Magic Box, ignoring Warren's yelp of surprise and fear.

"Look, I didn't mean--things just got out of hand--"

Giles turned a hard stare on him and Warren fell silent.

"You're not worth my time right now," Giles said. He marched Warren downstairs, with only a little assist from magic. He took out the chains they kept for restraining demons and chained Warren to the wall.

***

**Willow**

Xander was probably driving eighty miles an hour, and it still felt too slow for Willow. Giles could be hurt or even dying from magic overload by now.

After what seemed an eternity, they arrived at the Magic Box, where Anya was waiting outside. “You’re too late. He left ten minutes ago.”

Someone was yelling downstairs. They found Warren chained up to the wall.

“Well,” Dawn said. “I guess one problem’s solved.”

“So now what?” Xander asked. “Do we take him to jail?”

Willow said, “I dunno. If Jonathan was right about all the gadgets and explosives at Warren’s place, maybe we want to send a bomb squad in to deactivate them first. There’s no point in sending him to jail if he just sends a robot to break him out.”

“What about calling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms?” Dawn asked. Everyone stared. Dawn said, “We were studying it in Civics. It’s the federal bureau that handles major explosives.”

Buffy said, “Later. Once we figure out where Giles is.”

Willow said, “I’ll call Tara and ask her to come over and do a locator spell.”

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Willow opened it, expecting Tara. Instead it was Amy Madison and an older woman.

Willow said, “Uh, Amy, it’s great to see you, but this isn’t really the time. We have an emergency.”

Amy said, “We know. One of the seers at my coven saw what Mr. Giles is planning."

Willow felt a small stab of envy. She'd always wondered what learning from a coven would be like.

Amy continued, "It's an invulnerability spell for Buffy and Faith. We're here to stop him."

Xander said, "I can see why making Faith invulnerable might lead to badness, but I'm not seeing the downside of an invulnerability spell for Buffy."

The older woman, who must be the high priestess of Amy's coven said, "To accomplish the spell, he'll have to draw upon the life-force of the earth. The energies that would otherwise create new life will be used to protect Buffy and Faith instead. Every year, fewer children and animals will be born, fewer plants will sprout. If the spell is allowed to continue, Buffy and Faith will be the only living creatures on earth within the next three hundred years.”

***

**Ethan**

Someone was shaking Ethan's shoulder, waking him up from a brilliant dream about prowling the streets of London with Ripper. Ethan rubbed his forehead, trying to make the ache go away. The little witch could inflict a lot of damage through brute force, even with her facile understanding of the nuances of fighting with magic.

Warren was sitting by his bed. "I need your help."

"Oh, gods, is this about girls again? Because this is really not a good time."

Warren grabbed Ethan by his shirt. "I shot the Slayer, and she didn't die. I need your help to get away from her."

Ethan tuned in, listened to what the chaos magic had to tell him. He sensed Ripper's panic, his anger. He’d done a healing spell on--oh Janus help them, the little shit had nearly killed the Slayer _and_ Willow. Ripper was loading up on power right now.

He was tempted to let Warren know just how badly he'd screwed up, but as usual, his self-preservation instinct was stronger. He said, "I’ll do a camouflage spell to keep her from seeing you."

He gathered chaos magic particles to create the magic equivalent of a sign saying LOOK HERE RIPPER in giant neon letters. After Warren left, he would do a _real_ camouflage spell on himself and get out. He needed to get far, far away before Rupert and Buffy put the pieces together and discovered Ethan's connection to this fucking idiot.

***

**Buffy**

The real curse of being the Slayer was the bad karma that seemed to radiate out from her to everyone she cared about.

Angel? Turned evil. Her mom? Gone too soon. Dawn? Nearly killed in a ritual sacrifice to save the world. Giles? On some bizarre magical crusade that could only lead to eventual world-endiness.

She asked Coven Lady, “What does your seer think we should do?”

Coven Lady said, “Her vision ended with Giles casting the spell. She didn’t have any recommendations.”

“Fine,” Buffy said. “What do you suggest?”

Coven Lady said, “Persuading him to abandon the spell.”

Buffy thought about how stubborn Giles could be at times. “And if that doesn’t work?”

Coven Lady looked very stern. “The coven is preparing to cast a counter-spell. In the unlikely event that he survives the counterspell--”

“You can’t kill Giles!” For a moment, Buffy wondered if she was going to have to step between Willow and Coven Lady.

Coven Lady said, “I’m hoping we won’t have to.”

Willow looked about three seconds away from turning Coven Lady into a toad, so Buffy said, “I’ll start with persuasion. Will, you and Tara go find Catherine, see if she has any less-lethal ideas to stop this spell. Xander, you, Dawn, and Anya hold down the fort here and make sure Warren doesn’t try any funny stuff.”

***

**Giles**

There was a new foundation over the site of the old library; Giles recalled Xander saying something about the school being rebuilt.

No matter. Giles would know the site of the old library under a thousand tons of concrete. He stepped there, and started his mental preparations for the spell.

Buffy and the priestess from the coven were approaching. He had time to engage them for a bit. The Hellmouth energies and the earth's natural magic wouldn't align for another hour.

Buffy ran up to him. "Giles, I know what you're trying to do. You need to stop!"

"I can't stop. This spell is necessary." Had to keep track of the time; he couldn't risk her distracting him from starting the spell at the right moment.

The coven priestess had finally caught up to Buffy. "My coven is prepared to cast a counterspell if you don't."

"Do what you wish. It won't change anything."

Buffy caught him by the arm, "Giles, she says that the counterspell could kill you!"

He wrenched his arm free. "You and Faith are far more important to the world than I am. If this is what it takes to keep you safe, it's worth it."

She drew herself up, all indignation. He'd finally managed to draw her out of her apathy. "I can take care of myself!"

"Right. What about Spike? The chip stopped working and you didn't tell anyone? Then you let Willow get rid of the only other thing protecting you?" He caught a thought running through her mind. "Can you honestly tell me that was a decision based on rational strategy? Not just sentiment because you fucked him?"

The priestess was watching them now in disbelief, clearly out of her element.

Buffy stepped back, wounded, "I--just, that's not the point. The point is, it's not worth the cost to the rest of the world. You can't set the rest of the world on fire just to protect me. It's wrong."

This conversation was growing tedious, and it was getting close to time to start the spell. "I'd rather lose part of the world to protect the rest than let it all burn because some dolt with a gun wanted you dead."

He sent out a flare of magic. "A few dozen Lamroch demons just hatched about thirty miles away. I don't think you want them to make it into town."

Buffy took the hint, and took off running. The priestess followed her.


	24. Chapter 24

**Ethan**

Cleveland. It was a pitiful excuse for a city, but the magic of its Hellmouth could help conceal Ethan until this mess blew over. He was beginning to think that Rupert had given up, or had accepted Warren as a sacrifice, when he felt someone powerful yanking him back to Sunnydale.

It wasn't Ripper, though. It was his little witch. Oh, shit. At least with Ripper, there was some chance of appealing to his sense of nostalgia and friendship.

Willow dumped him unceremoniously onto the floor, without bothering to cushion his fall. He was in some bland suburban kitchen. Willow’s blonde girlfriend was there, as well as Willow's mentor, the barren witch.

He pushed himself up from the orange tile floor, trying to maintain a modicum of dignity. "Oh, hello, my dear, how may I help you?"

She gave him a glare that could stop a Fyarl demon at fifty paces. "Giles is doing a massive spell, and I need you to tell me how to stop him."

"Why me? I'm just a humble chaos sorcerer. Well, maybe not so humble."

"Because you figured out how to use my power against me--"

"The only reason that worked is that you're just a _tiny_ bit arrogant. Don't make that face at me. I'm not criticizing; it's one of your more endearing qualities. You’d be bloody boring without it."

"--and because you know what Giles is like when he's using a lot of magic. Maybe better than any of us do." Shrewd of her to appeal to that angle. Did Rupert know what a calculated manipulator she was? Was that part of her charm?

"And why, exactly, should I care about a dispute between the two of you?"

"Because if he completes the spell, there's a coven that's going to do a counterspell that will kill him."

He sighed. No matter how much he hated Rupert sometimes, he couldn't imagine a world without him in it. No choice but to try to help her. His back throbbed from the fall to the floor, and he struggled to keep his voice and his expression neutral. No sense in letting her know that she’d managed to hurt him.

"The trick I used on you is a fairly common maneuver for fighting a powerful opponent. It worked on you because you haven't spent a lot of time fighting other magic users or thinking about tactics. Rupert is a different story. He used to pick fights with sorcerers and witches for fun. And that was before the Council training. There isn't a fighting strategy he hasn't seen before. Whatever strategy you try, he'll be expecting it and ready to counter."

"So what about something really, really basic? If he's Mister Strategy, maybe he won't be expecting that."

Willow's teacher said, "You could try to get close to him, and steal the magic away from him. But a magic transfer under those circumstances could be dangerous to both of you."

Danger wouldn't be enough to dissuade Willow, so he raised a practical concern. "Also, if he has enough magic to pull off an invulnerability spell, he'll be able to read your mind. He'll never let you get close enough to even try."

She sat down and buried her face in her hands for a minute or two. Her girlfriend put a hand on her shoulder.

Willow looked up at him with determination in her eyes. "If I can figure out a spell to handle the mind-reading thing, do you think the transfer could work?"

"I think it's got a better shot than any strategy I could teach you." It wasn't a lie--even a plan with a tiny chance of success was better than trying to play Ripper's game on his terms.

***

**Willow**

Willow said, "Ok, so what can I do make it less dangerous?" She could figure out the telepathy part later.

Catherine said, "It would help if you bring someone with you to keep you grounded."

That was a no-brainer. There was no one calmer, more down-to-earth than Tara. "Tara? Can you--"

"No. Absolutely not."

Tara's voice was so calm, it took a moment for Willow’s brain to register the words she'd said. "But--why?"

Tara stood up a bit straighter. "I won't help you do something that could kill you, especially when it's for no good reason."

"There is a very good reason! Giles is going to die!”

"All he has to do is stop casting the spell, and he'll live.” Tara said. Then she sat down beside Willow, looking directly at her. “You aren't rational where he's concerned. You were shot a few hours ago, and now you want to do some major mojo like this?”

"This isn't about _that._ Why do you keep insisting you know how I feel about him?"

"Because those feelings are there, and you won't talk about them. You hide them from me. Maybe you don't mean to. Maybe you're hiding them from yourself, too. And it's not just him. I think you like having a lot of powerful magic, and you don't want me to see that part of you."

"That’s not--"

"Can you let me finish? I know what it's like to be scared, to want to hide."

What was she talking about? Oh, the time when Tara thought she was a demon. That seemed like a million years ago. And it was so not an issue, back then. Willow had forgiven Tara instantly.

"I don’t know why you can’t stop hiding.” Tara grabbed her purse and started walking towards the door. “I just don't have the energy to even be friends anymore."

"I didn't think things were that bad." Willow tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. It felt like someone had yanked the floor out from under her.

Tara stopped at the door, and turned to face Willow. "We were really good together, for a long time. I think that's why both of us tried to hold on to each other for so long. But we've just kind of drifted apart. I hope you find some way to do this safely, but I can't help you."

She walked out the door, and Willow tried to collect her thoughts. There was the gut-clenching feeling of rejection, but there was also something else--relief. She didn't have to keep trying, and failing, to do things that Tara approved of.

“She’s right, you know.” Willow had almost forgotten Catherine was there.

She whirled around to face Catherine. “What’s _your_ problem with saving Giles?”

“I’ve watched for years as that man has used you and pushed you to the breaking point every time there’s an apocalypse. I’ve bitten my tongue about his interference because I want the world to go on existing.” She put her hands on Willow’s shoulders and moved in closer, her gaze intense and unnerving. “But you’re not risking yourself for the world now. You’re risking yourself for him. I have worked too damned hard to help you reach your full potential to just watch you throw it all away.”

Willow pulled away. “ _You’ve_ worked hard? I don’t see you getting the nosebleeds and the insomnia and the chaos sorcerer attacks. You--you’re like a stage mom, only with magic.”

She gathered up her spellbooks and opened the door. "I don’t care about reaching my full potential if it means turning my back on someone I love. I’m gonna help him because he'd do the same for me, if I were doing something really stupid. You don’t have to like it, but you’re gonna have to accept it."

As she slammed the front door shut, Willow realized that she knew exactly how to handle the telepathy.


	25. Chapter 25

**Xande** r

Xander flipped through the introductory magic textbook; he desperately needed something to distract him from Anya, who was running around the shop, tidying the same shelves over and over, and very pointedly ignoring him.

Warren yelled, “Guys, I think this was all a big misunderstanding. You don’t want to be the kind of people who chain someone to the wall forever. Let me go!”

"I wanna go downstairs and jam one of those altar cloths in his mouth," Xander muttered.

Dawn said, "I wanna grab one of those Wiccan swords, go downstairs and make him regret trying to kill Buffy and Willow."

"No!" Anya cried. "Nobody's wasting valuable merchandise on him!"

_Xander._

He dropped his book; it hit the ground with a thump. "Gah, Will. For the millionth time, could you knock before you do that.”

_Sorry, it's kind of an emergency._

“Did Buffy call and let you know that she couldn’t get through to Giles?”

_Yeah. It’s ok. I'm going to help him. But I need someone to drive me there so I can prepare myself on the way. Can you do that?_

“Yeah, of course.” Anything beat sitting here. He grabbed his keys and called to Dawn and Anya, “Willow needs some help. Call us if you have any trouble.”

He picked Willow up outside the Madison's house. "Okay, Driver Guy at your service. So what do you need from me?"

"I need you to stay far back while I talk to Giles.” She had a look of grim determination on her face. “And I need things to be quiet for the next few minutes--I need to really concentrate for this."

Be fray-adjacent and shut up, Xander. It really hurt how useless he was for everyone around him.

***

**Tara**

The coven had gathered at Breaker’s Woods. Everywhere Tara could see, the fields were dotted with small groups preparing for the counterspell. Some of them were mixing herbs and clay, some were making copies of the invocation, and some were marking out the sacred circle.

Tara sat on the grass, leaning back against a large oak tree, as she guided the ball of light slowly from one hand to another. She was still flush with adrenaline from the argument with Willow, and her nerves were shot. She needed to calm herself for the counterspell.

Someone crouched down beside her. "Wow, you have really great control. I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Amy Madison.”

Tara felt ridiculously pleased for a moment. It had been a long time since anyone had complimented her magic skills. "Thanks. I’m Tara," she said.

There was an awkward pause as she tried to think of something to say to Amy. She didn't know much except that Amy didn't get along well with her mom.

"How did you get involved with the coven?" she asked.

Amy ducked her head; her bangs covered her eyes. "A guidance counselor at school is a member. She caught me using magic to cheat on homework. She gave me a choice, either the coven or school discipline, and I picked the coven.” Amy lifted her head and smiled wryly. “For the first couple of months, I thought I should have picked the school discipline. It would have been a lot easier to get through. But after a while, the feeling of belonging to something bigger than myself, of finding balance in all things--that was amazing. Learning Wicca traditions saved my life."

Tara smiled back at Amy. It was nice to talk to someone who understood and really respected the Wiccan traditions.

Then she glanced back out at the witches marking the sacred circle. It wouldn't be long before the counterspell started. When it was over she might lose a friend, or maybe two, to dark magic. Her smile faded.

She’d come here because she thought that Willow couldn’t save Giles and the world. She hoped with all her heart that she was wrong.

***

**Giles**

Giles sent out a wave of magic, the forces of the earth answered his call, rushing through every cell of his body. It seemed fitting. Buffy had protected the world so many times. It was time for the world to protect her for a while.

A flicker of energy, as familiar as the sun. Willow was approaching him. But he didn't sense any plans to stop him or even dissuade him. His heart sang. She was here to help him. She'd had a moment of misplaced compassion for Spike, but in her heart, she wanted to protect Buffy as much as he did.

With her by his side, no one--not the coven or anyone else--could stop them.

***

**Willow**

They reached the school, and Willow took a deep breath, and walked out towards Giles.

Giles smiled at her. It was a strange sight--his face, his smile, but colder, more calculating somehow. "Are you finally ready to admit what you want?"

"Yes. I want to help you with the spell." There was a part of her that thrilled at the thought of the magics, even as dark as they were.

"It's not just the magic," he said.

She shook her head. She was about three feet away from him, and he closed the distance. His dark eyes bored into her, and the look made her shiver. She looked up at him, letting herself feel how much she yearned for him, even when he was nearly consumed by magic. She gently put her hand on his chest, and before she could think about it, she ripped magic away from him.

Tara was right: Willow had always been good at hiding things, especially from herself. She'd spent the time in the car rearranging thing--pushing the hidden to the forefront, hiding away her plan.

She was also pretty good at doing things without thinking them through beforehand.

***

**Giles**

He was paralyzed by shock for a moment. He saw how she'd hidden from him, and had a fleeting moment to think, "Clever girl," before he was desperately fighting to hold on to his magic. She'd had the advantage of surprise, and a more natural affinity for the power--it seemed to flow to her of its own accord.

He kept trying to yank it back. She kept tearing it away from him, more with each pull.

Her eyes turned black and her hair darkened. As she pulled harder, he could feel the magic draining away. And all of it was pouring into her, mixing with her own repressed rage and frustration. Dear God, this wasn't what he'd wanted at all.

"Willow--" he tried to grab her arm. She raised a hand and said, " _Thicken_ ," and held him still. His limbs felt heavy and slow.

He tried to reach her telepathically, but even his mind seemed caught in a thick fog. But he could still hear her thoughts, and they terrified him.

She’d done this to herself because she loved him.

***

**Willow**

Willow felt the magic flowing through her, and the huge rush of being connected to every person, every tree, every last speck of dirt on the earth. The exercises she’d done before had been so shallow, barely skimming the surface of the world’s power.

She could do anything now. Giles had risked himself for no reason. Why bother doing an invulnerability spell when she could protect Buffy from anything on her own?

She could start with the person who tried to kill Buffy--Warren. Leaving him chained to the wall was too good for him. And after Warren, she could go to the coven and show them the error of their ways in trying to kill Giles. They hadn't listened to her before, but she’d have no problem making them come around to her way of thinking now that she held this power--

\--and then something small and inconsequential ran up and demanded her attention.

He grabbed her shoulder. "Could you guys go five minutes without nearly dying or getting eaten up by magic? Because that would be fantastic right now."

This was an intolerable delay. “Out of my way.” Her voice boomed with the force of the magic, which pleased her. She’d always hated her little girl voice.

He looked scared. But he kept holding on anyway. “Nope, I’m not going anywhere. Even if this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. And you know more than anyone what a competitive field that is.”

She sent a blast of magic to knock him down.

He got back up, a little unsteady on his feet, grabbed her arm. “Willow. You have to remember--”

Another blast with more force behind it. He hit the ground with a shriek.

As she started to walk away, he grabbed her ankle. “Remember--we came here to help Giles, not--whatever this is.”

The pain in his voice pierced through the wall of magic between them. Then she remembered. She'd brought him here to keep her grounded. Because too much dark magic, absorbed too fast, could be dangerous. She needed to return Giles's magic to him, and return the dark magic to the earth. She closed her eyes, and started letting magic go. The earth absorbed some it. Some of it returned to Giles. And some of it seemed to stick to her, despite her attempts to let it go.

After a few moments of frustration, she decided to leave it there for the time being. She ran to Giles, who was hunched over, looking like he’d aged about ten years in the last two minutes. She touched his chest again, this time letting the power return gently to him.


	26. Chapter 26

**Giles**

When it was all over, after Warren was arrested, and the coven had gone home, Buffy came to see him.

She didn’t want tea. He sat next to her on the couch, wishing he had something else to do to distract him from the conversation that was coming.

They stared at each other, the silence stretching between them. He was torn between wanting to get this undoubtedly painful conversation over with, and wanting to delay it just a bit longer.

Finally Buffy said, “You go first.”

“I--I know that I didn’t bring you back from a Hell dimension, and I’m truly sorry for that.”

Buffy was quiet for a moment, then said, “It was hard. It still is. But I made a choice. I could have chosen to stay in my hallucination a few weeks ago, and instead I chose to be here. And we can’t do anything to change it. I guess we should just try to fix what we can."

Undeserved forgiveness weighed on his chest. “I’m not sure what to apologize for next,” he said. “I’ve made so many mistakes in the last six months.”

She nodded, “Yeah, you have.” She sat up a bit straighter, her shoulders back. “Whatever massive world-savage thing I'm supposed to be doing against The First, I can't do it without you, and Willow, and everyone else. So I need you to stop being big with sacrificial gestures.”

“Right,” he replied. Relief began to set in; she was starting to regain her confidence. He hadn’t ruined her forever. “Is there anything else I can do to start making this right?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You need to trust me to make the right decisions. No more sabotaging and second-guessing me.” Then she turned to him with her most intimidating Slayer glare. “And I don’t know what’s going on with you and Willow, but you’d better not hurt her. Or I’ll kill you.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” As much as he’d like to declare that he’d never hurt Willow, he knew he already had.

***

**Xander**

He thought maybe Willow would be hungry after the whole ordeal, but she just picked at the Mongolian Beef, and ate maybe a spoonful of fried rice.

"If you don’t like it, I can go get something else for dinner."

"I-I don't know," Willow said. "I'm not sure what I want."

“Why don’t I call Tara?” Tara would know how to help her, instead of blundering around like Xander was now. This whole dark-magic-palooza would be right up Tara’s alley.

“No!” Willow said. “We had a pretty bad fight. She thought it was too dangerous for me to try this.”

The pain in his ribs flared up, and all of his concern turned into anger. “So you decided not to ask my opinion at all? You figured the best way to get what you wanted was to drag me along and not tell me what you were doing?”

"No," Willow said. She looked like she was about to cry, which was completely unfair. Willow crying was one of the worst things in the world. He needed to hold onto his argument, and not give in, dammit, because this was important.

She touched his hand, and he felt the magic buzzing like an electrical current under her skin. "I couldn't tell you. If I had, Giles would have read your mind and he'd never let me get close enough to him. The only chance I had was tricking him. If you’d known, he’d have figured it out right away, because everything is straightforward with you. I’m more--secretive.”

He wasn’t always straightforward--but if he told her that he'd been the one to summon the musical demon a few months ago, they'd get sidetracked from the real topic of conversation, which was Willow and her secrets.

"So what exactly is going on with you and Giles, anyway?"

"Um. It's complicated?" She turned back towards her food.

He grabbed her shoulder, turning her so she faced him. “Nope. You owe me, big time. Spill.”

She ran a hand through her hair, twisting a strand of it around her fingers. “I think I love him, Xand.”

“You _think_?” None of those words made sense together, but for some reason, he zeroed in on that one.

“I’m still kinda getting used to the idea,” she said.

“Christ, Will! He’s old enough to be your dad!” Then he thought maybe he'd figured it out. “Is this some weird association thing with magic? Like you shared magic with Tara, and you fell in love, and now you think you’re in love with Giles because you shared magic with Giles.”

“It’s not that--” she began.

“Then what? You weren’t in love with him before, but that little stunt he tried to pull sealed the deal? You thought it was incredibly hot that he got world-endy with dark magic, and nearly took you with him?”

She pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the chair. “It’s not magic. I think it was there for a long time, but it was hard to recognize because I still had feelings for Tara. And it was scary because he’s older, and because I know everyone else is going to be wigged by it, and he’s got all this messed-up stuff from his past that he’s still dealing with. And he’s intense, and sometimes it’s intense in a ‘grr’ kind of way, not in a sexy way. It just felt a lot simpler when I was in love with Tara.”

Still not making any sense. But then, it wasn’t like his love life made a lot of sense, either. “What are going to do about it?” he asked.

Her lips turned up in a sort of half-smile. “I’m still figuring that out.”

***

**Giles**

After the discussion with Buffy, Giles had been struggling between two competing impulses: to start work immediately on making amends to everyone, or to remain in his apartment, wallowing in his guilt. On the whole, making amends was preferable, but he was still weak from the fight. Even walking felt like an odd challenge, as if his legs had forgotten all muscle memory.

He took out his guitar, strummed a few bars of a song, trying to calm his jangled nerves, and as the rhythm of the music drew him in, he started to sing.

_I'm gonna love you_

_Till the heavens stop the rain_

_I'm gonna love you_

_Till the stars fall from the sky for you and I_

He sensed Willow on the other side of the door. Was that heightened awareness of her a short-term side effect of the magic transfer, or something more permanent?

She let herself in.

“That was really pretty,” she said. “What song is it?”

“It’s called ‘Touch Me,’” he said. “It’s by The Doors.”

“Oh. I liked it,” she said. She blushed, and for a moment he caught a glimpse the shy teenager he’d met years ago. She sat down on the couch, and he sat down next to her, leaving plenty of space between them.

"How are you?" he asked, dreading the answer, but still needing to hear it.

She shrugged. "I'm hanging in there. Some of the magic stuck around, and Catherine's been helping me adjust. Are you ok? That didn't go as smoothly as I thought it would. I didn't want to hurt you."

He snorted. "Except for the crippling guilt, I’m fine."

"If any of that involves me, you can drop it right now. Everyone told me it was dangerous, and I went in anyway. And I'd do it again."

"You wouldn't have had to--"

"Nope, not gonna listen to you beat yourself up. I'm just glad that you're back with us in one piece."

She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and he couldn't help but pull her close to him. It was just a comforting hug; he wouldn't let things drift into inappropriate behavior this time.

"I'm glad you made it through, too. If you had been killed, I'd--" he paused for a moment, as his awareness of her grew stronger and stronger, and it seemed as if words weren’t even necessary. The look in Willow’s eyes suggested that this heightened awareness was mutual.

Then a wave of magic crested through her, and she hunched over in pain. She retreated from the connection. “Just a little hiccup there. I need a minute to adjust.”

Giles waited through a few tense moments as the magic worked through her, until Willow started breathing slower and sat up straighter.

“Willow, I’m sorry you and Tara had a falling-out.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “And we weren’t going to get back together anyway. It took me a long time to figure it out, but I think we’ll both be happier that way. If we’d been meant to be, we’d never have let magic--or someone else--get between us. ”

His heart lurched; somewhere under his self-loathing lurked a tiny, foolish sliver of hope.

She took his hand in hers. "Giles, I know we're not supposed to make major decisions after getting shot, or after a huge fight with an ex, or after nearly ending the world, or almost getting lost in dark magic. But we both know how we feel about each other now. Can’t we try?”

He said, “It’s a little more complicated than whether we love each other. I’ve made a lot of terrible choices, and they left scars. It's unfair to ask you to deal with them when you’re just starting out in life.”

She squeezed his hand. “I know, but obviously I’ve got--problems, too. I'm kind of precocious that way. I’d still like to work through them together."

He kissed her hand. “I’d like that, too.”

Her face lit up with a smile of such uncomplicated joy that he forgot to breathe for a moment.

Then she pulled him in for a kiss. She tasted of cinnamon gum and hope.


End file.
